


Carve Our Name in Hearts Into the Warhead

by pacebrows



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Political Theory, Politics, Professor Castiel, Soldier Dean Winchester, War, he is in the air force LOL, kind of, lol, soooOOOOO much politics, they're so dumb and i hate them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 02:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacebrows/pseuds/pacebrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world has gone to shit - Russia and the United States are in the midst of a global pissing contest and the U.S. government is scrambling to get ahead of the game. Castiel is an anti-war war theorist and has been (to his chagrin) enlisted to provide counsel to the State Department in their ultra-high security underground base. Dean is an Air Force engineer in charge of developing the most efficient and deadliest last resort possible for the government, and he thinks Castiel is super rad. Castiel is a grumpy butt! Dean is a goober! Stay tuned to see what happens!!!!!!1</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hEY so here is the thing: i started writing this in october of 2013. seriously. i wrote this steadily throughout last year and then i started my senior year of college and guess what: it was nOT as easy as i planned. and then my sister sent my ex boyfriend a link to my a03 and i didn't need him seeing my GAY FANFICTION so i deleted everything LMAO hahahahaha but this fic is honestly my baby. i have dedicated so much energy and time and LOVE to this freaking thing and i really want it out there for people to enjoy because i have loved writing it! i PROMISE i am planning on finishing this. this fic is in no way abandoned. i know exactly how i want it to end and i will get it there but i cannot guarantee a set posting schedule because i have 3 weeks of my undergraduate career left and i have two massive spanish papers to write but i pROMISE there will be updates. pinky swear. pLEASE read this and enjoy it and tell me what you think i love you
> 
> title is from the josh ritter song "the temptation of adam" which is 150% the inspiration for this fic listen to it it's beautiful and pure and 2 gud 4 dis *world emoji*

“But doesn’t it seem silly?”

 

“Of course it’s silly, Cassie, it’s the United States government.”

 

Castiel sunk deeper into the soft leather of the bench in the Town Car.  The lush green of the Colorado back country blurred past the rain-flecked window and he felt thoroughly put out.  Balthazar sat next to him, tapping away at his smartphone.  He seemed unaffected by the strange upheaval that had just taken place in their lives, and Castiel scowled.  He would have preferred to stay in his studio apartment in Cambridge and continued his professorial duties, but when the Secretary of State comes to personally knock on your door and inform you that your talents are needed elsewhere, you can’t very well refuse.  

 

So here he was, one G650 flight later, winding his way through the centennial state, avoiding highways altogether and seated next to an infuriatingly casual Balthazar. 

 

“Where are we even going?”

 

Balthazar looked up from his phone with an unimpressed turn to his mouth.  “Wouldn’t be much of a secret base if we knew where it was, would it?”

 

Castiel’s scowl deepened and he picked at a loose thread in the stitching of the seat.  “How can you be so calm?” he asked.  “We’ve basically been kidnapped and you’re - “ he leaned over to glance at the screen.  “Tetris?  Really?  Aren’t you at all concerned about what they want from us?”

 

“No, not particularly, because I happen to remember what we do for a living and I can put two and two together and figure out what the bloody hell the government could want us for.”

 

“I’m a linguistics professor, why--”

 

“Playing dumb is not cute.  You happen to be one of the most brilliant political theorists of our generation, darling, and you know it.  The fact that you’re an expert linguist is really just a bonus in this case.”

 

“Oh, please, Balthaz--”

 

“This modesty doesn’t suit you, my friend.  It’s false and, really, unnecessary.”

 

They sank back into silence.  Balthazar’s gaze returned to his phone and Castiel glared at him for a few more moments before shifting in his seat to lean his forehead on the cool glass of the window.  Balthazar was right, which was annoying.  Castiel knew exactly how brilliant he was when it came to international relations.  Since joining the faculty at Harvard five years ago, he’d been at the top of numerous “political minds to watch” polls in several leading journals, and he’d been snapped up as the keynote for no less than fifteen symposiums in the last year and a half alone.  The linguistics gig was really just to keep his spot on the faculty.  His true passion was picking apart state behavior and writing about it.  His latest book had been something of a landmark in political theory, explaining war and state relations in a way that had somehow satisfied both the liberal and realist factions of political thought.  He had become an overnight celebrity, his work suddenly discussed outside of political circles.  He’d become somewhat of a household name, and he’d been thoroughly unprepared to deal with the newfound fame.  Sitting on a panel at a conference was one thing, but a recurring gig on CNN was something he didn’t quite know how to handle.  It wasn’t that he was shy, he just felt awkward, and despite Balthazar’s constant assurances that he had a “face for television” he felt out of place under the studio lights, his words broadcast across the nation.  

 

Castiel’s breath formed a little cloud of fog on the window and he traced designs into it with his fingertip.  He was being childish, he knew, but he couldn’t find it in himself to stop.  He was supposed to have left today to headline a panel at UChicago, his alma mater, and he’d been fairly excited to head back to the city for the first time in years, but those plans had been foiled when the government had showed up on his doorstep.  And the kicker was he couldn’t even act affronted or surprised by it.  He’d had a feeling ever since his book’s publishing that they’d want him for something or other, especially since it had been mass-released mere days after the official declaration of war.

 

Now that Castiel had time to really think about it, that was probably why this turn of events was so upsetting.  He’d spent the majority of his career writing against war.  He’d spent most of the book explaining why war happens, but a good six chapters had been dedicated to reiterating why war was the greatest folly a state could commit.

 

“Did they even read my book?” he asked Balthazar without taking his forehead off of the window.  The cool glass helped soothe the headache rapidly forming behind his eyes.

 

“I’m sure they did,” Balthazar replied absently.  “I don’t get why you’re so surprised by this.”

 

“I’m not surprised, I just don’t understand why they think that I’ll be of any use when I’ve made it clear that I don’t approve of war with practically every publication I’ve circulated in the last decade.  If they’d read the book they’d know that I’m not exactly a big fan of this country.”

 

“You’re not a big fan of any country, Cassie.  You’ve been grumbling about the futility of government as it exists today as long as I’ve known you.”

 

“That’s because it’s ineffective and stagnant--”

 

“I _know_ , darling, I know.  If it were up to you, you’d be on some desert island somewhere avoiding everyone.”

 

“I don’t even _vote,”_ Castiel moaned.  “Why would the government want me?  I’m the antithesis of patriotism.”

 

Balthazar sighed and turned in his seat to face Castiel completely.  Castiel mirrored the motion.

 

“You might prefer to pretend otherwise, but you’ve managed to establish yourself as the modern expert in state relations.  People used to regurgitate Morgenthau’s nonsense if they wanted to explain why countries behave the way they do.  Now they drop your name.  You’re a hot commodity, darling, and even though you might hate politics at large and war in general, you’re the best at figuring out why it works the way it does.  I’d bet my bonnet that our esteemed president thinks that your analytical skills can help us get the drop on the Russians.”

 

“That’s assuming that my theory is correct.”

 

“Which the government clearly has.”

 

“So why are _you_ here?”

 

“Cassie, you wound me.  Someone has to make sure you don’t put your foot in your mouth in front of the most powerful people in the world.”

 

Castiel huffed.  As annoying as Balthazar could be, he was glad to have him with him.  It brought a sense of normalcy, and he clung to it.  The British expat had been his classmate during his first round of grad school in Chicago, and although they’d disagreed fiercely about more things than they’d agreed upon (they no longer mention Kant around one another), Balthazar had been a staunch supporter of Castiel’s throughout his academic career.  His post at Harvard was largely thanks to Balthazar’s recommendation (his position as assistant dean of the Kennedy School had helped matters significantly).  Balthazar had cornered Castiel after MIT had conferred him his second hood and informed him of the tenure-track position that was available to one Castiel James Milton, PhD in the linguistics department.  Really, it had been the perfect professional situation.  Castiel had been qualified for the job academically, and his three critically-acclaimed books along with the Milton name lent him the prestige that a school like Harvard would put out for.  He taught one upper-level undergraduate linguistics class three times a week, had office hours from nine to eleven, and what he did with the rest of his time was utterly up to his own discretion.  He hadn’t even had to move after graduation.

 

They lapsed into silence broken only by the intermittent vibrations from Balthazar’s phone and the rumble of the road beneath the tires.  Castiel crossed his arms over his chest, staring down with distaste at his travel-wrinkled slacks.  His white oxford had rucked up in the back but he didn’t care enough to fix it.  He wanted a shower and a bed, preferably his own, but he figured it wasn’t worth the expenditure of energy to mope about his change of circumstance any longer, so he sucked it up and watched woods turn into rain-soaked meadows, and the rolling hills buckle up into mountains.

 

After approximately six years (or a few hours, who knows), Castiel began to feel an intense need to piss and a gnawing at his stomach that had been abated only slightly by the granola bar Balthazar had forced upon him earlier.  He was about to open his mouth to complain about it when the car turned onto a gravel drive interrupted by a high chainlink and barbed wire gate.  A large DO NOT ENTER sign was zip-tied to it and the gate groaned open when the driver opened an inconspicuous black box and inserted his thumb, presumably to be scanned.  The car moved past the gate.  Balthazar put his phone away for the first time the entire journey, looked out the window, and tugged on his right ear absently, a tell that Castiel had learned years ago indicated anxiety.

 

Castiel nudged him with his elbow and asked, “Why are you nervous all of a sudden?” 

 

Balthazar turned to him and plastered a bored, unaffected look on his face before replying, “I’m not, why would I be?  What makes you think that?”

 

Castiel pursed his lips.  “You’re pulling on your ear, Balth, you always do that when you’re nervous.  You did that constantly before you defended your thesis.”

 

Balthazar sighed.  “I don’t know, Cassie.  I guess I’m kind of just realizing how weird this all is.  We didn’t even have time to pack before they shoved us on a plane.”

 

“I did tell you that this is unusual.”

 

“Oh, shut up.  ‘I told you so?’  Really?  We are literally on our way to a top secret government facility.  They’ll probably make me be responsible  and intellectual.”

 

“You’re a dean at Harvard and you’re the editor at large for three separate political journals.”

 

“I will hit you.”

 

“Do you think the base is actually in that mountain over there?”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

They both went quiet then, and looked out of their respective windows.  Gravel crunched under the tires as the car progressed down the drive at a speedy fifteen miles per hour, and the rain slowed to a light drizzle.  Castiel rolled his window down and inhaled fresh mountain air and the crisp smell of rainy earth.  No sign of human life was visible along the drive, and half an hour passed as they wound their way through woods where trees grew at a slight incline, indicating an increase in elevation.  They were gradually climbing the mountain and Castiel’s ears popped.  He dozed.

 

\----------------------

 

Eventually, the car stopped.  The brakes jostled Castiel awake and he rubbed his eyes and took in his surroundings.  They were parked in front of what looked like a giant garage door built into a slight protrusion from a solid wall of rock.

 

“Well fuck me,” Balthazar breathed.  “The base is actually in the bloody mountain.”

 

Any impulse to gloat Castiel may have had was swallowed by an overwhelming sense of trepidation.  It was one thing to pout about being forced to uproot his life and serve a government he didn’t approve of, but to stare said service dead in the face and know that he had no other options was overwhelming and frightening.  The United States may have been entangled in an unpopular and deadly war, but they were still the most powerful government in the world and their strong suggestions tended to be thinly veiled commands that one couldn’t just shrug off.  Castiel had no idea what they expected of him, a scholar who had spent the past fifteen years writing paper after paper against war, and who had spoken publicly against U.S. international intervention.  He didn’t know how he was expected to aid in a war effort he was so adamantly opposed to, and the idea of working with people who had obviously misinterpreted his latest book made him feel apprehensive.  

 

The car sat for a few more minutes before there was a shriek of metal on metal and the door cranked open, revealing a dim tunnel dotted with orange halogen lights.  The driver started the car up and inched forward, entering the tunnel.  Castiel had expected a long and winding ride through the bowels of the mountain (a notion that may have been inspired by the spy movies of his childhood), but they only drove for a short while before they came upon another gate, which swung open into a gleaming LED-illuminated garage.  People in uniform milled about state sedans and SUVs and military Jeeps, and the muted hum of voices and machinery pervaded the space.  Castiel shivered and rolled his window up.

 

The driver pulled the car into an alcove, shut off the engine, and came around to open Balthazar’s door.  Castiel slid out after him, and he blinked into the lights that were slightly blinding after the dim of the tunnel and car.  He grabbed his messenger bag before he closed the door after himself, and as he slid the strap over his chest to rest the bag against his hip, he took the opportunity to take in his surroundings.  The garage really was enormous, with a soaring ceiling that suggested that the garage was in fact nestled in a massive cavern within the mountain.  The floor was concrete, with the occasional motor oil stain, and the walls were criss-crossed with aluminum ducting.  Balthazar shuffled closer to Castiel and jabbed an elbow into his ribs before leaning in to whisper, “Why, I do believe our illustrious hosts are coming to greet us.”

 

Castiel followed Balthazar’s line of sight and saw a small group of people striding purposefully towards them.  At the head of the group was a woman in a smart grey pantsuit, her chestnut hair pulled into a rather severe bun, an altogether no-nonsense kind of look, and Castiel could hear her shiny patent pumps clacking along the floor.  Three steps behind and two to the left of her was an imposing man whose dark skin shone in the artificial brightness of the garage, his brows pulled into a dour-looking furrow.  Castiel knew the dark green of his uniform indicated that he was Army, but he didn’t know (or care) enough about the armed forces’ ranking systems to tell how important he was.  His proximity to Naomi Engel meant that he must be pretty important, but Castiel was determined to not care about any of this so he forced his face into an indifferent blankness and crossed his arms over his chest.  Balthazar did the same.

 

The group reached the two professors and stopped, the uniformed personnel standing at attention, eyes staring determinedly into the middle distance, backs ramrod straight.  Castiel deepened the slouch he adopted naturally and felt a small sense of satisfaction in it.  Naomi stepped forward and extended her hand.  Castiel took it and shook it, and Balthazar followed suit.

 

“Doctor Milton, Doctor Roché, welcome to Area 14.  I trust you had a comfortable trip?”

 

Balthazar replied in the affirmative, and Castiel studied the woman’s face.  Naomi Engel was a formidable presence.  You got a sense of her intrinsic tenacity on television, but to have her blue eyes lasered directly into yours was an unsettling experience.  And Castiel had been told that _he_ had staring issues.  You got the sense that, no matter how strong you thought you were, she could figure out your every weakness and make you fit the mold she had created for you.  It was what made her such a successful secretary of state.  She was a bulldog in the international arena.  Negotiations that the pundits had insisted would turn out to be dismal failures ended up going smoothly and always in the United States’ favor, and the most powerful men in the world nodded, said “yes ma’am,” and personally signed their official signature on whichever dotted line Naomi provided.  Castiel respected her, of course he did, with the kind of grudging respect you’re obligated to give to someone who excels in your same field.  She had been top of her class at NYU and then again at Cornell.  Castiel had read several of her papers, and despite her tendency towards American exceptionalism, her understanding of political theory was sound.  This understanding combined with her iron will made her the best cabinet decision President Shurley could have made.  So why did they need Castiel?

 

“Doctor Milton?” Naomi asked.

 

Castiel blinked rapidly, staring at her and trying to figure out at which point of the conversation he had stopped paying attention.  Naomi stared back coolly.  Castiel cleared his throat.

 

“I’m sorry, I missed your question,” Castiel said.

 

Naomi adjusted one sleeve and said through a smile that was only slightly threatening, “I was just asking you if you were too tired for a tour of the facility.  I’m afraid I have a meeting to attend, but Miss Moore here would be more than happy to show you and Doctor Roché around.  If you’d rather, she can show you to your rooms immediately and you may rest until tomorrow, which is when I’ve planned your briefing.  It wouldn’t do to inundate you with tedium when you’ve had such a trying day.”  She clasped her hands in front of herself and waited for Castiel’s decision.

 

Castiel rubbed his nose and glanced at Balthazar, who shrugged, so Castiel turned his attention back to Naomi. 

 

“I don’t really have an opinion, but I’m not too tired and I suppose it would be useful for Baltha-  ...um, Doctor Roché and I to get familiar with the layout of this place,” he told her.  He readjusted his messenger bag.

 

Naomi nodded and turned to the man in the Army uniform.  “This is Lieutenant General Raphael Adams.  He is the highest-ranking officer on these premises, and in the event that we face an attack or during any emergency that may arise, you are to defer to him.  It’s unlikely, but we need to make sure we have everyone adhering to a uniform protocol, you understand.”  She smoothed a hand over her hair and smiled at them.  “Now, I’m afraid I must be off.  I have a video conference with the President and the CIA in ten minutes.  Miss Moore?”  A tall young woman with blonde ringlets escaping her loose ponytail hurried forward, clutching a tablet to her chest.  “This is Jessica Moore.  She is going to give you a brief tour and show you to your rooms, at which point you may unpack, decompress, whatever you need to do to prepare for tomorrow.  Dinner will be delivered at seven-thirty.  Don’t get used to that, though, after tonight, dinner’s at five-fifteen in the mess with everyone else, civilian or not.”

 

She gave them one last smile before bidding them good day and turning on her heel, marching towards a door a ways to their left.  The group of uniformed personnel filed behind her and General Adams.  Jessica Moore stayed behind, smiling brightly at them.  She was a beautiful girl, her heart-shaped face evenly tanned and her eyes sparkling with something that could be mischief or a dirty joke, given the right circumstances.  

 

“Naomi’s way formal,” she confided, leaning forward conspiratorially.  “Nobody calls me Jessica except my dad, and that’s only when he’s pissed.  Call me Jess.”

 

“Lovely to meet you, Jess,” Balthazar said with a smirk.  He smiled flirtatiously and went on.  “What is it you do here?  You’re too pretty to be in the armed forces, and you look too smart to be a mere secretary, so how did you get roped into this circus?”

 

Jess laughed, a throaty chime of a laugh that seemed to warm Castiel from head to toe, and she replied, “Secretary is one word for it.  I was an aide for Naomi during college, junior year?  It was my semester abroad.  I only got one credit for it, can you believe that?  And it was a gen ed credit too, because apparently practical experience in the political sphere doesn’t give you extra polisci points.  Anyway, Naomi was a Massachusetts senator, this was, um, two years before the election.  I was doing grunt work, making copies, filing stuff, going on coffee runs and everything, when she called me into her office.  Aides don’t work directly with the senator usually, we answer to their people and get the senator’s signature on a generic rec letter afterwards, so I was scared.”  

 

She grinned infectiously.  “Like, what had I done wrong?  Did I forget to ask for soy in her latte and was she enough of a harpy to call me out on it?  So I went in there quaking in my DSW-discount Calvin Klein pumps and she just smiled at me.  You know how creepy that smile makes you feel, like you’re about to be reamed and even if you don’t know what you did you know you deserve it?  

 

“But she just told me that she had read my application personally and had chosen me herself.  Asked if I was still planning on graduating early, and when I said I was, she asked if I had any plans after college.  I told her no, not really, that I didn’t feel like grad school was something I wanted but that maybe I would be a teacher, and she told me that if I was interested, she had a position reserved for me.  So when I graduated I moved to DC and I’ve been on staff ever since.  Naomi’s not so bad once you get to know her, I promise.”

 

She laughed once more and rested her palm against her cheek.  “But oh man, look at me.  I never stop talking, feel free to tell me to shut up anytime.”

 

Castiel huffed out a laugh and smiled at her.  “Don’t worry about us,” he said.  “The past few days have been very strange, and you’re the first person who hasn’t acted like a robot all day.”

 

Jess laughed again and she glanced over her shoulder.  Her smile faded a little and she turned back to them.  “Look,” she sighed, “I know you guys have had a long day, so I want to get you through this tour and into your rooms as quick as possible.  You’re important guests here so you’ve got the best beds in the place waiting for you.  Let’s get this show on the road.”

 

She turned and gestured vaguely around the garage.  “This is the Hangar.  We keep all the vehicular junk here, and the mechanics bunk over that way.  Nothing really interesting about this place, but it’s one of only two ways in and out of the base.  It’s built into a naturally occurring cave, which was already gigantic so they didn’t really need to do much blasting here, which helped preserve the structural integrity of the mountain yadda yadda yadda.  You want out of the place?  You leave through here.  Moving on!”

 

The little group walked through the garage, Jess and Balthazar cracking jokes to one another and Castiel silently observing them.  He was glad Balthazar could find levity in their situation where he could only find frustration, and he was grateful for Jess.  Naomi frightened him a little, and Raphael seemed generally unpleasant, and Jess’ lighthearted banter and refreshing candidness was doing a good job of keeping him from going completely crazy.  Jess explained that the Army mostly ran the show here, but there was a special group from the Air Force doing some highly sensitive R&D, which Jess knew a lot about but refused to explain until their clearance levels had been determined.  They walked to the periphery of the Hangar to a large steel door set into a recess in the cave wall.  

 

“This place isn’t very complicated.  Once you get a hang of it, you can find your way around no problem,” Jess informed them with her hand on the door handle.  “The whole thing is set up like a kind of seven pointed star, with each arm housing a different department and their bunks and everything, and in the middle is the mess hall.  Some parts of it are up to 300 feet underground, which sounds claustrophobic and tunnel-y but they really do a good job of keeping it from being too industrial and depressing.  There are sun lamps in every room and there’s this giant screen in the mess with a live feed of the valley we’re situated in, so that’s actually pretty nice.  High-speed internet in your rooms, too, so Netflix therapy is always an option.  We even have a bar, since this is a long-term-commitment sort of deal.”

 

Castiel perked up at this.  He raised his eyebrows and asked, “A bar?”

 

Jess grinned and winked at him.  “Sure thing, Doctor Milton, fully stocked with a nice civilian discount.  But let’s save that for later, hmm?  You’ve still got more to see.”

 

With that, she turned the handle on the door and leaned against it with her shoulder to get more leverage to open it - apparently it was just as heavy as it looked, military-grade security and everything.  The door led to a stairwell where a riveted steel spiral staircase descended down into a murky brown dimness.  Weak halogen lights lit the space just enough to see where you were going, and Castiel supposed this was to save on the assumedly massive energy costs of the rest of the base.  Jess led them to the stairs and kept up a steady chatter as they climbed down, talking about her family and her cat and her boyfriend who was apparently a Navy JAG attorney just completing his first year as a commissioned officer.  Balthazar and Castiel nodded and made noises of affirmation in the right places, and Castiel thought that they would probably feel significantly more anxious about this whole thing if Jess wasn’t there to distract them from their own thoughts.  As it was, Castiel could see Balthazar resume his ear-pulling.  They both needed a drink.

 

After what seemed like an eternity, they arrived at another door, this one with a keypad on the adjacent wall.  Jess turned to them and smiled sympathetically.  

 

“This has been rough on you two, I know, and I can’t really imagine what you must be feeling,” she said.  “I signed up for this gig willingly and even I get overwhelmed by it and feel trapped sometimes, but I want you to know that I am totally here for you.  You need anything?  Come find me and I’ll see what I can do.  I know I talk a lot but I’m a pretty decent listener too so before we go through this door and get you officially involved, I want to make sure that you guys know that you have an ally here.  Don’t stress too much.”  She smiled.  “Okay, are you ready?”

 

Castiel and Balthazar exchanged looks.  Balthazar smirked and said, “Ready as I’ll ever be, my dear, although I doubt I’ll ever be fully prepared for what our esteemed government expects of me.”

 

Jess punched him in the arm playfully before entering a six digit code into the keypad.  There’s a series of beeps and then a clunk as the door unlocked itself, and she pushed it open.  They walked through the door into a large round room and Castiel wasn’t really sure what he expected but it wasn’t this.

 

While he had been raised primarily at his family’s compound in upstate New York, Castiel had spent spent a couple years in high school with his aunt Anna in the City.  She kept a suite of rooms at the Plaza, and he had spent many long hours studying in the lobby of the hotel.  He remembered loving the way the light had diffused through the golden curtains and played on the gleaming marble floors, the rainbows cast on those floors from the magnificent crystal chandeliers, and how the lofty and ornately coffered ceiling made your words bounce around the room.  Castiel was at quite a loss for words because where he had expected a sterile and industrial environment, maybe everything chrome-plated, he found instead a place that reminded him strongly of his teenage home.

 

The floor beneath his feet was cream-colored tile, not marble, but not dissimilar to it.  A warm golden light pervaded the space, and it was not unlike the light you get right before day slips into dusk.  People both in uniform and civilian business casual bustled around, their voices echoing slightly.  Castiel could hear telephones ringing behind closed doors in what he assumed to be the offices Jess had mentioned and a muffled din of speech and the clink of silverware off dishes somewhere to his left in what he knew had to be the mess hall.  It must be five-fifteen or somewhere thereabouts, then, which would explain Castiel’s stomach taking the opportunity to curl in on itself and growl loudly.  This made Jess laugh and she promised him that she’d get them some dinner soon.

 

She tapped something on her tablet and then looked up at the two professors, grinning.  “Okay, so a little snafu arose and I can’t take you to meet the Air Force guys like I wanted to.  They’re the most normal men and women in uniform in the whole place and they’re working on some really cool stuff but apparently there was a mild explosion in one of their workshops-” she paused to laugh at Castiel’s dropped jaw and waved a hand dismissively before continuing, “Oh, no, don’t worry, that kind of thing happens all the time when they leave PFC Miles alone too long.  But anyway, they have to clear that up so I can’t take you to meet everyone today.  So I think we’ll start, uh....that way.  Show you the mess hall.”

 

They walked towards the sound of clinking china as Jess explained that this lobby connected the offices (“You can’t escape American bureaucracy even when you go underground”) and the mess hall, which itself connected the six other arms of the seven pointed star that was the underground base.  

 

“That’s to promote unity, I think.  We have so many different cogs at work here, so many different parts of the government doing a lot of different things so I think they wanted there to be a place where everyone can sit and be kind of equal, regardless of profession or uniform or whatever,” Jess explained as she opened the door to the mess hall, and immediately they were blasted with the dull roar of quite a lot of people all talking at once.  

 

“This is the mess hall, obviously,” Jess said, walking backwards through an open aisle between tables, leading them through the room.  “Food’s pretty decent, but it’s pretty basic.  Lots of mouths to feed, so not a lot of room for variety.  They’ve already been informed of any and all allergies you have, so don’t worry about that.  Breakfast served six AM through eight, lunch from eleven to one, and then dinner five-fifteen to seven-fifteen.  It’s open anytime between but they don’t serve food so you’ll have to get good at sneaking stuff out or get on the cooks’ good sides if you want a snack.”

 

Castiel tried to take it in.  There were no less than a thousand bodies in the room, and he was surprised to see military and civilians sitting and talking to each other like the uniform or lack thereof didn’t matter.  He supposed that when you’re stuck in a place like this, you made friends where you could.  Solidarity was a powerful thing.  Against the far wall was the giant screen Jess had told them about earlier, and it was currently showing the sun sinking behind the mountains.  Jess paused every so often to greet people and to crack a joke or two, but they made their way out of the room fairly quickly and ended up in a long corridor with a couple doors dotting the walls and several smaller hallways branching off of it.  

 

Jess pointed down the corridor and said, “This is where everyone who isn’t military but is involved here stays.  There’s kind of a dorm environment and a few offices.”

 

“So is this where we’ll be living?” Castiel asked, peering down the corridor.

 

“Oh, no, this is for permanent fixtures only.  You two are technically temporary so we’re putting you up in the guest wing, where the ritzy digs are.  This is where I live, though.”

 

Jess showed them the rest of the facility, barring the wing that housed the Air Force personnel (“Hopefully they’ll have a handle on everything soon and you’ll get a chance to meet them and see their work, it really is fascinating.”), and Castiel felt mildly amazed at the diversity of the operations present at the base.There was codebreaking and codemaking, environmental impact research, and even a program where spies underwent intensive colloquial Russian and cultural training.One wing was busier than the rest, and Jess explained that Mission Control was housed there, with the main situation room where Castiel and Balthazar were to be briefed the following day.  

 

“Naomi and Lieutenant General Adams are in there right now with the rest of the top brass.They have daily meetings with the president and the members of State and Defense who aren’t assigned to this place.We’re technically a part of the Pentagon here, so it’s important that we stay abreast of the situation and any potential developments.”

 

Jess went on to explain that the facility had actually been around since the Cold War, that there was a missile silo connected to the wing that currently belonged to the Air Force, and that expansion and modernization had begun shortly after North Korea announced their nuclear program, in order to have a place even more secure than the Pentagon from which to conduct war operations, and that when war with Russia seemed imminent, personnel were moved to the facility and the skeleton crew of 150 grew to a permanent population of 1,500 state officials and enlisted military with their officers, with accessory officers and members of state in constant rotation.

 

They reached the far end of the mess hall and Jess paused with her hand on the handle of the final door.She smiled at them warmly and said over the din, “This is our last stop!” 

 

She opened the door and the corridor behind it looked no different from the rest of the corridors they’d seen all day, with heavy steel doors lining it and the occasional hallway splitting off.Jess led them down the corridor a ways and turned left at a fork and they found themselves in a small hallway with two doors facing one another.Jess handed them each a card, which she informed them was the key to their respective rooms.She pointed Balthazar to his and he thanked her for the tour and went inside, closing the door firmly behind him.Castiel guessed he was too overwhelmed for any more pleasantries, and he didn’t blame him.He looked up at Jess, who was typing something into her tablet.He reached across and laid his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up, startled.

 

“I just wanted to thank you for today,” he began, “The past few days have been inordinately stressful, and you’ve done a wonderful job of making our situation seem a little bit more normal.I’m very grateful.”  


Jess grinned and, to his great surprise, threw her arms around him.He returned the embrace awkwardly, and Jess said into his shoulder, her words slightly muffled, “Don’t even worry about it, buddy.”She pulled back, her hands on either one of his shoulders and a grin still in place on her face.“I meant what I said earlier, about me being on your side.I know you didn’t have a whole lot of choice in this, and I can only imagine how disorienting this must be for you and Dr. Roché.You’ll get used to it in a few days, I expect, but if you ever need anything, seriously, come to me.”

 

She patted his shoulders once and pulled away completely.She tucked an errant curl behind an ear and reminded him that dinner would arrive in about an hour.Castiel thanked her again and she took her leave.  

 

Castiel rolled his shoulders and sighed.He closed his eyes briefly and quashed the panic attack he could feel trying to bubble up past his lungs.That could be dealt with later.He swiped his keycard and with a beep and a dull clunk, the door unlocked and he opened it and stepped into a large and remarkably well-appointed room.He kicked the door shut behind him and looked around, surprised to see a large four-poster bed tucked into a corner with a heavy-looking oak side table.There was a fluorescent overhead light, but it wasn’t turned on.Instead, a tall floor lamp provided the room with a soft yellow glow.Castiel ran his hand over the back of a squashy sofa and saw that his own Macbook had been set up on the desk against the far wall, which was illuminated by a squat hurricane lamp.He poked his head into the attached bathroom and found it to be rather spartan in comparison with the rest of his room, but the showerhead looked like it could provide satisfactory pressure, and a pile of fluffy white towels sat on the rack above the toilet.

 

He opened the cedar wardrobe to find that all of his suits had been brought from Cambridge, and he opened a few drawers of the nearby dresser to find that most of his casual attire from home had been folded and put away neatly.He glanced around the room and saw that in fact a large number of his personal things had been brought to the facility from home, and that gave him pause and made him think a little less antagonistically towards his government.By the same token, however, it meant that they expected him to stay for quite a long time.  

 

Castiel started to feel nauseous and walked over to his bed, lowering himself onto it slowly.If he had been able to get past the bile that was rapidly rising into his throat, he would have noted that the bed was extraordinarily soft and that the linens were pleasantly cool and silky, but as it was, all he was really aware of was the bile and his trembling hands and he thought to himself, _now’s as good a time as ever for that panic attack_ , so he curled up into a ball and let every emotion he’d repressed over the past 48 hours wash over him.Tomorrow would be full of thinking and feeling and frustration and unpleasantness, so Castiel allowed himself to have this opportunity for panic and self-pity, which eventually sparked up into anger, and he paced around his room growling obscenities and making vaguely threatening comments to the furniture, before that faded into depression and he resumed his post in the fetal position on his bed.Eventually it all kind of negated into a sort of buzzing numbness and he let himself float in that for a while.He vaguely remembered a knock at the door and getting up to retrieve his dinner, which was steak and potatoes and which he placed on his desk and left untouched.He thought he heard Balthazar at his door once, but he ignored the insistent knocking and did his best not to think about anything.His dinner was probably cold anyway, so he ignored it and decided to use the best coping strategy he had in his arsenal: he went to sleep.

 

~~~~~~

 

The machine beeped and Dean glanced down at the screen to see that his workout was 90% over.Good.He hated cardio but he had to keep it up to make sure he was meeting all of his fitness requirements.He didn’t quite understand why at 28 he was required to maintain the same level of fitness that he’d been required to keep up at the Academy, especially since his military career took place more behind a desk than in the field these days, but orders were orders and if there was one thing Captain Dean Winchester was good at, it was following them.

 

Dean hated the treadmill.More than the exercise itself, he hated the sense of confinement, the machine’s inherent futility.Like a hamster on wheel, running and running and getting nowhere.Today was a bad day.He’d been stationed at the base for six months tomorrow and for the most part he’d become accustomed to the recycled air, and the the artificial lighting didn’t piss him off all that much anymore, but some days he remembered that he was several hundred feet underground and to say that it made him stir-crazy would be an understatement.He had grown up surrounded by flat openness, where all you could see was farmland and you could see it for miles.The Academy introduced him to Colorado, to her mountains and valleys and unadulterated majesty, and some days, especially treadmill days, he felt like screaming.

 

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and took a swig from his water bottle, his muscles vehemently protesting every stride he made.He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand and closed his eyes, willing those next five minutes to pass more quickly so he could just fucking leave already.He was startled to feel a tap on his shoulder.He opened his eyes and whipped his head around to find Charlie standing behind the machine, arms crossed and her mouth screwed up in badly concealed amusement.  

 

“What is it?I’ve got five minutes left, can this wait?”

 

“Sure, but Singer won’t be happy about it.The old man hasn’t come back from dinner yet but if you don’t do some damage control pretty quick, Ash is going to be a dead man.”

 

Dean sighed and punched the stop button on the treadmill and hopped off.Forget Ash, he was going to kill Kevin for leaving the guy alone in the lab again.This made the fifth incident in as many weeks and Bobby was edging closer and closer to a stroke with every explosion.

 

“So what exactly happened this time?” Dean asked as he grabbed his water bottle and followed Charlie towards the door.

 

“Not entirely sure.I was in the mess with Glinda when Kevin paged me.He just said that Ash had done something and that I should go get the head honcho.But I didn’t want Singer to freak so I went and got you, since you’re the second highest ranking head honcho.”

  
Dean snorted and rolled his eyes.Charlie pulled the door to the mess open and Dean’s stomach grumbled.He’d forgotten dinner again, and he swore inwardly.He still had a few granola bars left over from the package Sam had sent a few weeks ago, though, so it wasn’t a complete tragedy.Dean and Charlie made their way through the crowded mess hall, greeting people as they went, and Dean could feel his earlier frustration melt away slightly the further he walked into the throng.He had always felt more at home in a crowd: when he was forced to engage with others, there was less opportunity for him to get stuck in his own head.  

  
The door for the Air Force wing was at the far end of the mess, directly opposite the short-term residents’ wing.They’d nearly reached it when the door to the bureaucratic wing swung open and Dean saw a familiar head of blonde curls peer around the doorframe.Dean grinned and was about to tell Charlie that he’d meet her in the lab (it had been a while since he’d talked to Jess, and he knew that her mom was supposed to have sent her a care package with those amazing cookies this week) when he saw that Jess wasn’t alone.A tall man wearing a v-neck and pair of jeans just shy of being obscenely tight followed her into the mess hall, and a few beats behind him came a shorter man who was rumpled from his dark shock of hair to his oxford and slacks, a messenger bag slung across his chest.The man’s face wore an impressive scowl, and Dean’s grin slipped.Charlie rolled her eyes and headed into their wing, shutting the door behind her.Dean hung back.

 

He loitered with his hand on the door handle, watching Jess move around the room with the two strangers in tow.The dark-haired man’s scowl never softened, and Dean swallowed as the man glanced away from Jess and gazed in Dean’s general direction.Those eyes were the most stunning shade of blue Dean had seen in a long time, and his gaze was sharp and penetrating, almost calculating.A plate somewhere to Dean’s left crashed to the ground and shattered, jolting him out of his study of the man’s eyes (which was really just his brain mumbling the words _wow, blue_ over and over, and Dean could have sworn he’d graduated with honors from the Air Force Academy with an engineering degree) and he blinked rapidly before remembering that he definitely had somewhere he was supposed to be.He glanced at the door for a moment before he remembered _oh right, Ash, explosion_ , and when he looked back up, Jess and the two men were gone.He shook his head rapidly to clear it and turned the handle, slipping into the wing where he worked and lived with his woefully underfunded and ragtag team of weapons developers.

 

He didn’t have to look far to find them, as a crash up the hallway and to the right let him know where they were, and he hustled into the lab.He found them seated at the far end of a long metal table, huddled around something black and mangled and which was smoking slightly.Kevin looked thoroughly distressed and was whispering something heated in Ash’s direction.Ash, for his part, looked unperturbed despite the smudges of black on his nose and cheeks and the singed tips of his mullet.Charlie just looked like she was trying to reign in her laughter.Dean cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest for effect when they all snapped to attention.  

 

“What the hell happened this time?”

 

Kevin and Ash both started to explain, talking over one another, voices rising until they echoed off of the ceiling and made them utterly unintelligible.Dean raised his hand to silence them.Ash had the decency to look sheepish; Kevin looked like he was about to cry.

 

“Alright,” Dean began after a deep breath, “Let’s start with Miles.What did you do?”

 

Ash rubbed the back of his neck.He glanced down at the ruined hunk of machinery and back up at Dean before saying, “Well, I was sitting here and I saw this soldering gun and there were some parts in the waste bin and I thought, why waste ‘em you know?So I was just kind of messing around and there were some wires that I needed to get rid of before I could put the two bits together and I guess I got distracted because I realized how I could finish up the project I’m coding in my room and I must have clipped the wrong one and, I don’t know, man, there was a bang and here we are.”Ash grinned up at Dean and held up his hands in a “what can you do” sort of gesture.Dean sighed. 

 

He turned his attention to Kevin, who was wringing his hands and rocking back and forth on his heels.“Tran, how many times have I told you not to leave this joker alone in the workshops?” he asked, trying his best to keep his voice level in an attempt to keep Kevin from vibrating out of his skin in anxiety.

 

“I’m sorry, sir, really I am, I just _really_ had to _go_ , you know, like, _really badly,_ and Ash swore he’d be fine if I left him alone for five minutes and Captain I _swear_ it was five minutes, and I hurried as fast as I could but the bathroom is all the way up the hallway and when I got back he was sitting at the table with _that_ in front of him and all he said was OOPS and I-” Dean cleared his throat loudly and Kevin’s mouth snapped shut.

 

“I’m gonna be real honest here, guys,” Dean said wearily.“I don’t give a shit what Miles did or why he did it, and I don’t really give a shit why Tran wasn’t with him when I’ve specifically told him to never let him mess around in the workshops.”Kevin opened his mouth to say something else, but Dean raised his voice and continued, “I want this shit cleaned up before Singer gets back.I want this to be the last time something like this happens.I like you a lot, Ash, but I can’t keep covering your ass when you fuck shit up.You’re a programmer, not an engineer, dude.And Kevin, just...”Dean sighed.“Just take him to the bathroom with you next time?I don’t know, man, just don’t leave him alone with the toys.”

 

Ash gave him a thumbs up and Kevin nodded rapidly, biting his lip and looking fragile.Dean sighed and muttered an “at ease” before turning on his heel and heading out of the room, Charlie on his heels.  

 

He glanced back at her and shook his head wearily. 

  
“What am I gonna do with those two?This shit is never-ending.” 

 

Charlie laughed and slapped a hand on his shoulder, kneading the muscle.“At least you’re never bored.Could be worse.”

 

“Ash is lucky we need him so much.”

 

“He’s lucky he’s got you as his superior officer.Anybody else and he’d have been shipped out of here pronto.”

 

Dean sighed again, stopping in his progress up the corridor to lean against the wall and scrub a hand over his eyes.

  
“Charlie, I’m so fucking tired. Today’s a shitty day.”  


“Right there with you, bud, I’ve been all over the place trying to get everything set up for the consultants.I accidentally told Gilda that I had some free time and she roped me into some casual interior decorating.”

 

Dean lifted the hand from his eyes and frowned at Charlie.“Consultants?Is that who I saw with Jess earlier?”

 

Charlie nodded and leaned up next to him, foot kicked up against the wall behind her.“Two professors.Harvard, I think.”

 

“You know their names?”

  
“Negatory.Why would I know?You’re the guy in charge here, I thought you were briefed over this.”

 

“I probably was but you know I never pay attention to those.”Dean rubbed his nose and yawned hugely.“I’m beat.I’m gonna turn in and try to get ahold of Sammy before I go to bed.I’ve got a briefing tomorrow morning that I need to be fresh for.”He reached over and ruffled Charlie’s hair, messing up her bangs as she squawked in protest.“Make sure Ash and Kevin get their mess cleaned up before Bobby gets back.I don’t wanna deal with an angry Colonel unless I gotta.”

 

Charlie gave him a salute a shade more casual than it should have been and turned on her heel to go back into the workshop.Dean could hear Kevin’s raised voice through the open door.

 

\----------------------

 

One of the perks of being a ranking officer in charge of high-priority and highly privileged research, Dean had discovered when he’d first been sent to Area 14, was that you were afforded a significant amount of comfort.After having dealt with cots and tents and life in a desert warzone for first years of his young adulthood, the privacy of his own room was a novelty, and he couldn’t find it in himself to take his wooden furnishings and soft cotton bedsheets for granted.Six months after moving in and he still took great pleasure in the fact that he had a real shower with enough hot water for a lengthy shower.Charlie had to bunk with Pam, and Kevin with Ash.Dean knew he’d been spoiled by having his own space, but he luxuriated in it all the same, figuring he’d earned it after fourteen years of sharing everything with Sammy, which had been followed by four years at the Academy and two tours.So yeah, Dean had earned himself his own bed and the right to take as much uninterrupted masturbatory time as he wanted.

 

He threw himself onto his bed and booted up his laptop.He shoved Ash’s nonsense to the back of his mind to worry about later and thought some more about Blue Eyes.A consultant?He felt like he had known about this.It had definitely been mentioned to him at some point, and he had a fuzzy memory of a briefing way too early one morning, officers only, but he couldn’t really remember the specifics.One could only go to so many TOP PRIORITY briefings before they started to run together.He couldn’t get that guy’s frown out of his head.He seemed so nettled and Dean was intrigued and felt like he needed to figure the guy out.What was beneath that thorny exterior?Was his hair normally that mussed or was it just today?What color were his eyes up close?What was his _name?_ Oh God, Dean didn’t know his name.That was unacceptable.Mission number one tomorrow: find Jess and figure out exactly who this guy was.He set his jaw and nodded once determinedly.  

 

Skype was open and Sam was online, and Dean grinned.He clicked the call icon and sat back against the bed frame, waiting for Sam to answer.The camera switched on and Dean’s grin widened when his brother’s face came into view.

 

“I gotta tell you, Sammy, I don’t think I’m ever gonna get over that haircut,” Dean chuckled.

 

Sam glared at him through the camera.“Don’t call me that.And it’s been this short for two years,” he huffed, running a self conscious hand over his close-cropped hair.“You were with me when I got it done, Dean.”

 

Dean barked out a laugh and said, “Yeah, I remember.Still, after so long with your hippie hair it’s gonna take at least five years to get used to it.How’re things in DC?Happy anniversary, by the way.”

 

Sam beamed and a faint blush rose in his cheeks.“Yeah, I can’t believe it,” he breathed.“A whole year with a commission.Things are okay.Boring, mostly.”He rolled his eyes.“I still haven’t really established myself so I’m getting a lot of really simple cases, nothing flashy or high-profile.It’s annoying.”

 

“You’ll get there, give it a while.You’re still green, buddy.”

 

The conversation went on in the easy back and forth manner as it always had, and Dean was happy.It had been a few days since he’d talked to Sam, and he always felt off until he’d had the chance to see his face.Being stationed halfway across the country and literally underground didn’t help, either.They talked about everything and nothing.Dean was tired of the meatloaf.Sam had finally found time to read something that wasn’t a case briefing.The allergy shots seemed to be working and Sam wasn’t so bothered by Jess’ cat, and he expressed his excitement that Jess had gotten a little vacation time and would be visiting him for a couple weeks.Dean was excited about a possible breakthrough his team had made in the technology they’d been developing.Sam was having one of his semi-regular existential crises over how he really felt about being in the military when he was a pacifist because what if they sent him to fight a war that was rapidly growing in both scale and intensity.

 

It was good.Sam had ripped off his training wheels early and figured out how to function independently around eleven years old but Dean had clung onto him much longer,And it was embarrassing, but he still felt flashes of the old codependence he’d worked so hard to get over every once and a while, so while Skype was a poor substitute for being able to have his brother next to him, it was soothing to see him all the same and he could feel some of the day’s lingering claustrophobia melt away.They finally bid one another goodbye when Dean’s eyes started to feel itchy and heavy and Sam pointed out that it was even later in his neck of the woods and that he still had a closing statement to draft.

 

“Don’t work yourself too hard.Get some rest.‘Night, bitch.”

 

“Jerk.Same goes for you.Don’t run yourself ragged down there.”

  
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try my best.Miss you.”

 

“Miss you too, Dean.Talk to you soon.Give Jess a kiss for me!”

 

“Aw, I couldn’t do that, Sammy, I wouldn’t want her to see how much she’s been missing out on dating your sorry ass.”

 

“Hanging up now.”

 

“Goodnight!”

 

The call ended.Dean closed his laptop and put it on the side table next to him, yawning loudly.A glance at his pager showed that nothing horrible had taken place and he got out of bed.He stretched his arms above his head and groaned as the stretch popped a few vertebrae and yawned again.A quick glance at the clock on the wall showed that it was only ten, and Dean felt kind of lame for turning in so early but he had that briefing tomorrow morning and Bobby would kill him if he showed up late or sleep deprived to another one.He brushed his teeth and washed his face quickly before stripping out of his clothes, flicking off the light, and launching himself across the room into bed.His room was small, just big enough to hold his bed, a dresser, a rather cramped desk, and a squat bookshelf in the corner by the closet, but it was his, and it was the closest thing to a home he’d had in a long time.He nuzzled into his pillow and drew the comforter up over his head and drifted off with a small smile playing about his lips, a pair of blue eyes and a disgruntled countenance the last thing he remembered before sleep dragged him under.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m Castiel Milton. I teach linguistics at Harvard and I think all of this is bullshit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! are you enjoying?? are you a hater??? let me know with a kudos (bar) or a comment! (my mom never let me eat kudos bars when i was a kid D: )
> 
> also, find me on tumblr! i don't know how to include links because i barely know how to plug in a toaster so copy and paste this into your searchbar: beyoncestiel.tumblr.com

Castiel woke up disoriented.  The insistent buzzing of an alarm jarred him awake, and he lay blinking in an unfamiliar bed for a few moments before he remembered where he was.  Where in his Cambridge studio there would have been muted morning sunlight, there was only a murky glow from the tiny lights along the perimeter of the room that kept it from being completely dark.  The first scowl of the morning bloomed across his forehead, and Castiel groaned and pulled the comforter up over his head.  Two sharp raps on the door preceded Balthazar’s voice informing him that it was seven AM and that he fully expected Castiel to appear showered, dressed, and pleasant in the mess hall in no less than thirty minutes.  In lieu of a response, Castiel reached down and grabbed an abandoned shoe and hurled it at the door.  It thunked metallically against the steel and Castiel could hear Balthazar chuckle and then footsteps fading away as the Brit made his way down the hallway.

 

After a good ten minutes of trying futilely to fall back asleep, Castiel decided that while he didn’t have to be happy about it, the day couldn’t be avoided any longer.  He sighed mightily and heaved himself out of the bed, which he grudgingly admitted was extremely comfortable and welcoming, and shuffled into the bathroom.  He turned the shower on and stripped, waiting for the water to get hot.  He glanced at the floor of the shower and found his shampoo, conditioner and body wash placed neatly in the corner and he frowned again, not appreciating the reminder of how thoroughly the government had taken over his life.  Even his loofa, the one shaped like a frog (a prank gift from Gabriel that he had never bothered to replace) was hanging from the showerhead.  The pressure was good, which eased his irritation slightly, and he lathered the shampoo between his palms and massaged it into his hair as he mulled over what exactly the government expected from him.

 

His book, _Realistic Liberals: the Reality of Modern Warfare_ had been written during his last sabbatical, which he’d taken in Prague.  Research had been conducted over the two years prior to the sabbatical, but the book itself had taken the better part of five months to write.  Balthazar had always been his most reliable and most honest critic, and when Castiel had sent him the final draft of the book, Balthazar declared it one of the most important things he’d read in years.  He warned Castiel to be prepared for a media storm, but Castiel had brushed the warning off, as he was still a relatively unknown political scholar despite his famous last name.  

 

Neorealist and liberal theory were polarizing, and Castiel had felt torn between the two ever since his first steps into political science in his undergraduate years.  He saw merit in both schools of thought, but he could never exactly figure out exactly to which he belonged.  He supported the liberalist view that military power was not the only legitimate form of power.  He also found validity in neorealism’s assertion that self-preservation was the foremost end of foreign interaction between states.  When his publisher had given him permission to write whatever he wanted, as long as he did it within three years, he had decided that it was time to figure himself out.  He’d feared that the book would be a rambling mess of a personal existential crisis, but apparently he’d succeeded in creating a new school of thought that sat happily between the two leading theories and allowed minds from both camps to discuss world events peacefully and come to some sort of agreement.  

 

The Syrian conflict had worsened steadily throughout his time in Prague, with Russia and the United States growing more and more antagonistic towards one another and less and less subtle about it.  Nobody wanted to throw the first punch, and the debate between what was morally right and what was legally possible had raged fiercely within the media circus and the Security Council itself, with frustrated cries for _sanctions_ and frustrated reminders of _sovereignty_ clashing and creating a muddled and confused cacophony.  Rational voices were silenced by the irrational ones that could scream louder.  Castiel had observed the pissing contest intensify from his little box apartment over innumerable mugs of coffee, his writing growing ever more indignant as the world fell apart and the potential for a full-scale international war moved from possibility to probability.  A relationship that had never been truly stable became less and less so as the United States maintained its tendency towards trigger-happiness and Russia felt its sovereignty more and more encroached upon, and the world discovered that whatever hatchet had theoretically been buried had only been shoved hastily under the rug.

 

The book had been published four months after Castiel’s return from Prague, and he had left on a book tour shortly thereafter.  It had begun to garner attention fairly early on from people who were not immediately connected to the field, which had struck Castiel as odd and made him feel slightly uncomfortable.  His agent, Meg, had been ecstatic that she could book him signing dates at venues that weren’t stuffy universities. Balthazar had been right, and Castiel was loathe to admit it.  His take on the political reality of the world was legitimate enough that new and impressionable political minds were required to read it for their intro-level international relations courses and accessible enough that Oprah named it an official Book Club selection, his work suddenly discussed amongst ladies who lunched and soccer moms everywhere.  CNN had contacted Meg within three months of publishing, and Castiel was forced to compromise his natural tendency towards a hermitic existence when he learned just how much the network was willing to shell out for a weekly half hour just after primetime during which he was allowed to talk about whatever the hell he wanted, as long as it was informative, relatively unpretentious, and as long as he wore Prada.

 

And then Russian-US diplomatic relations had broken down, to Castiel’s frustration and utter lack of surprise.  It was relatively inevitable given the way both nations had operated diplomatically during the Syrian crisis and later during the conflict with Ukraine.  Preparations for war had begun surreptitiously when Russia threatened to cut off oil exports to Europe.  Relations had deteriorated further when they followed through, and in July of 2015 there was an explosion in the American embassy in Paris which was easily traced back to the Russian government despite the Kremlin’s sloppy attempt at covering up the attack.  America found allies in her traditional partners, Russia found hers in various South American countries, North Korea, and much of the Middle East.  China stayed resolutely neutral, which kept the playing field relatively level.  The Middle East and Eastern Europe were the trenches, although most major cities across the globe remained on high alert for nuclear attack.

 

That was a year and a half ago.  Two months into the conflict, Meg had called him practically giddy with the news that President Shurley had made Castiel’s book required reading for his entire administration.  Castiel had spent every day since then wondering when he would be approached by the government, and in what capacity they would want him to serve.  He’d tried to live as inconspicuously as someone with a top-rated program on CNN and an incredibly popular book could, avoiding anything of real substance on his show and ignoring his family’s calls, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

 

And all of this culminated in Castiel standing under a steady spray of near-scalding water in a top secret government facility deep within a goddamn mountain, eyes stinging from the suds that dripped down from his saturated curls.  He’d been obliged by his profession to pay close attention to the war, as opposed to it as he was, and he knew it was going nowhere.  Both parties were well matched, and neither could seem to figure out how to pull ahead.  Weapons and strategy were equivalent, and the war was turning into a bloody stalemate with both sides too stubborn to make any sort of concession.  Castiel may have managed to establish himself as the new Mearsheimer, his book the new _Israel Lobby,_ but he felt indignant and hesitant to assist in a cause he opposed, and he’d been happily flouting authority ever since his boarding school days.  He hurriedly conditioned his hair and washed his body with the pretentiously organic lavender-rosemary body wash he couldn’t live without and rinsed.  He shut the water off and stepped out of the shower, drying himself quickly with a towel and scrubbing it over his hair.  Normally, he would spend what Gabriel considered an obscene amount of time in the mirror with a pomade in an attempt to control his tragically unruly hair, but a glance at the clock in the other room told him that he only had ten minutes to get to the mess hall, lest he incur Balthazar’s wrath in the form of an extra obnoxious attitude all day, so he ran a hand through his curls and lurched off to the wardrobe.  He pulled on a pair of slacks and an oxford underneath a sweater without really looking at any of it, shoving his feet into his brogues and grabbing his messenger bag and card key on the way out the door.

 

\----------------------

 

“How good of you to join us, sleeping beauty.”

 

Castiel glared at Balthazar as he placed his tray on the table with more force than was strictly necessary and slumped down into a chair.  The mess reminded him of the cafeteria at boarding school, with a line that wound through several food stations.  His card key served as identification as well, and when he’d scanned it, the machine had told him which line he needed to be in to avoid gluten contamination.  He stared down at his tray and tried very hard to find fault in it, but the fruit looked fresh and his omelette had been made to order.  There was a carafe in the middle of the table and Castiel grabbed it eagerly, exhaling slowly as he filled the mug he’d snagged with what looked like premium dark roast.

 

“Guests get the good stuff,” a feminine voice told him from across the table, and he looked up, startled, to find Jess smiling at him over her own mug.  “I’m gonna eat with you two from now on, I can’t tell you how much I miss my french press.”  Castiel decided right then and there that Jessica Moore was the best friend he would ever find in this place.  “How did you sleep?  Everything was comfortable enough, I hope?”

 

“It was very nice, thank you,” Castiel replied, closing his eyes and taking a sip of his coffee.  Costa Rican, he thought.  Shade grown?  He opened his eyes and smiled at Jess.  “Thank you for being so helpful, Jess.  I know I told you last night, but I really do appreciate it.”

 

Jess waved a hand dismissively and put her mug down.  “Please, it’s my job.  Plus, I like you guys.  It gets kind of boring here when you’re not military or political,” she said, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand.  “Everyone’s buzzing about you being here.  You’re scheduled to be briefed in about thirty minutes, and I’m supposed to escort you to the situation room.”  She laughed brightly.  “That cracks me up every time.  SITUATION ROOM, it’s so Dr. Strangelove.”

 

Balthazar laughed as well.  “We are living in a Kubrick film, darling.”

 

Conversation moved easily after that, interrupted periodically by the clinking of forks and chew-filled pauses.  Castiel liked Jess more and more with every sentence she spoke, and he felt like he could have a real friend and ally in her.  She was whip-smart and bitingly funny, with a filthy sense of humor that made it hard for him to feel bitter about his current situation.  Sooner than he would have liked, Jess was checking her watch and ushering them to the tray return, chastising herself for letting the time get away from her because they were late.

 

The threesome hurried across the dining hall and through the door that Jess had informed them yesterday held the nerve center of the facility.  Jess tugged at her necklace anxiously with one hand as she led them down the corridor.  It was all gleaming chrome and almost identical to the wing where Balthazar and Castiel lived, but instead of blank cement walls, there were large windows that looked into conference rooms and data centers, every door doubly secure with the addition of a retina scanner.  Towards the end of the corridor there was a door that was larger than the rest, and Jess halted in front of it, hurriedly shoving her card through the scanner and letting the device scan her eye.  The door unlocked and Jess grabbed the handle before hesitating and turning back to look at Castiel and Balthazar.  She smiled and gave them a thumbs up.

  
“Don’t worry, guys.  You’re going to be fine,” she said through a wide smile, although her eyes were pinched and looked slightly nervous.  “Naomi comes on strong, but she’s not so bad, and I don’t think you’ll have too much to worry about while you’re here.  It’s really more of an as-needed, on-call type situation, so you won’t have to be stuck in rooms like this all the time.  Leave that job to me.”  She laughed shortly and opened the door.

 

Jess hustled them through the room and to their seats, which were on the left side of the table, two seats down from where Naomi sat, mouth a thin line and eyes hard.  Jess took her place standing against a far wall, out of the way, her tablet out and stylus ready to take notes.  Castiel glanced around the room, taking in the variety of uniforms and the gleaming insignias on the lapels of the men and women surrounding him, wondering what they all meant.  He should probably have looked into this sort of thing before he left.  He felt Balthazar settle into his chair and remembered that he had made a decision not to care about any of this, so he leveled his gaze coolly at Naomi, who smiled tightly and said, “Allow me to officially welcome you to Area 14.  Before we begin this briefing, I thought it might be wise to let you meet the resident officers, since you’ll be living in close proximity to one another for the foreseeable future.  Would you like to introduce yourselves?”

 

~~~~~~

 

Breakfast was a protein bar consumed in transit to the Situation Room after having the covers hauled unceremoniously off of his sleeping body by a grumbling Bobby.  The older man shoved Dean towards the shower and told him he had fifteen minutes to be dressed in Blues and out the door.  Crap.  Dean’s hair dripped steadily onto his collar, for which he was sure to catch hell if Bobby saw, but he stubbornly repeated to himself that it was Bobby’s own fault for not waking him up in time.  He hurried behind Bobby, who was walking uncharacteristically fast.

 

“Bobby, what’s so important about this meeting?  We have one, what, every few days?  Why are you in such a rush?” he asked through a mouthful of crumbs.

 

Bobby cast a quick glance over his shoulder at Dean and rolled his eyes.  “For someone so brilliant, you sure are dumb,” he groused.  Dean huffed and took another huge bite of his protein bar and waited for Bobby to continue.  “Naomi’s brought in those consultants, remember?  We’ve been over this at least five times over the last month, every time that woman comes in to check our progress.  She told you.  Directly.”  Dean shrugged and Bobby continued, “How the hell did you get into the Academy, let alone graduate so damn lauded?  Anyway, we gotta show ourselves this morning because Naomi is briefing the professors and we ended up program directors.  Or did you forget you have actual responsibilities, idjit?”

 

“Ha, ha,” Dean bit out, “I just think these things are pointless, that’s all.”

 

Bobby kept talking to him, but Dean heard exactly nothing.  Briefing the consultants.  Professors.  Charlie said they were from Harvard.  He glanced over at Bobby, who was still talking, and weighed the pros and cons of interrupting him before deciding that satisfying his burning curiosity and a head of rumpled black hair were more important to him than getting smacked upside the head for impudence.

 

“Bobby, what do you know about the professors?”  

 

Bobby glared at him, as expected, but said, “Not much.  I know one of them wrote a book a while back.  Something really popular.  President made everyone read it.  He’s a Milton, got some funny first name.  Casper?  Something like that.  The other one is a dean at Harvard.  Why does it matter to you?  They aren’t gonna be involved with our work.”

 

Dean shrugged, attempting innocence, and they lapsed back into silence.  That was unhelpful.  His initial irritation at being forced to go to a briefing he had nothing to do with when there was real work he needed to be doing mostly faded with the knowledge that Blue Eyes Professor Man would be there, and he was struck with sudden gratitude for his Service Blues.  He knew they made him look good.

 

\----------------------

 

Dean shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  Why did they have to make these things so damn uncomfortable?  He glanced around the room.  He always felt awkward during these meetings.  He was an officer, sure, and he happened to be in charge of what was probably the most important weapons program in fairly recent memory, but never felt like he belonged around this table, seated next to men and women with serious faces who vastly outranked him.  He was only a Captain, for god’s sake.  He always felt like a child when he was made to sit through these briefings.  He was the youngest and lowest ranking in the room, and nobody ever addressed him anyway, and as a result he tended to just....not pay attention, hence his not remembering about the consultants coming.  Speaking of the consultants, they were late.  Which, judging by a quick glance down the table at Naomi, was a very serious issue.  Dean swiveled in his seat for a few moments, earning himself a kick under the table from Bobby, who was leafing through the briefing documents and studiously avoiding looking at his subordinate officer.  Dean sighed and sunk lower in his chair.  He perked up when he heard the door unlock and spun his chair around to get a good look of the consultants.  

  
Jess entered first, her face giving away her anxiety at being late, and he threw her a quick grin to try and soothe her nerves a bit.  She smiled back before leading the two men Dean had seen the day before to their seats.  Dean touched his jaw to make sure it hadn’t dropped because up close, Blue Eyes was something.  

 

His delicately tanned face was devoid of emotion save a slight frown and a bored glaze to his eyes that seemed intentional.  The man’s hair shone in the fluorescent light, and it must have had some sort of product in it yesterday because today it fell in loose, messy curls past his eyebrows into his eyes, which were seriously blue.  Dean needed to figure out better adjectives, here, but his brain power seemed to be significantly compromised at the moment.  He looked the man up and down and found the combination of slightly wrinkled navy slacks and inexplicable Christmas sweater more charming than strange.  He obviously hadn’t shaved that morning, a dark smudge of something had dried on the corner of his mouth (coffee? hot chocolate?), and one of his shoes was untied.  

 

Blue Eyes and his friend (once again clad in tight black jeans and a deeply plunging v-neck, which wasn’t typical professor garb from Dean’s experience) sat down and Dean watched Blue Eyes move his gaze around the room.  A part of Dean that was probably five years old sent the guy telepathic messages that screamed _LOOK AT ME_ , but, surprisingly, it didn’t work, and Dean was momentarily distracted from his study of side of the other man’s face by Naomi saying something but he didn’t catch her words because he noticed that the other man had wrinkles on his forehead.  Bobby kicked him under the table again and Dean snapped his head to face him.

 

“Pay attention, boy,” Bobby hissed, “You look like an antsy five year old.”  Dean resisted the urge to stick his tongue out and straightened up and tried very hard not to notice the sliver of stomach that flashed when Blue Eyes reached over to take his messenger bag off and put it on the floor.  Naomi asked the two professors to introduce themselves and Blue Eyes sunk into his chair while his companion smiled warmly.  He stood up and swept his eyes across the entire room, exuding charm and warmth.

 

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, arms folded casually across his chest, his stance relaxed, the picture of affability.  “I’m Doctor Balthazar Roché, but that title is all formality and I’d love it if you would just call me Balthazar.”

 

Dean stopped listening somewhere around the third degree Balthazar claimed to possess.  He could hear him talking, but he was too absorbed in his study of the other man to pay any real attention.  His arms were folded over his chest, bunching up the front of that bizarre sweater, making Rudolph wink out at the assembled officers, and the thumb and index fingers on his right hand picked absently at a loose threat on the left sleeve.  The longer Balthazar talked, the lower the man sunk in his chair.  Disgruntlement rolled off from his hunched shoulders in waves.  Dean raked his eyes over his face.  Lightly tanned skin, marred by a liberal wash of stubble that was a few shades to thick to call five-o-clock shadow.  Delicate creases feathered out from the corners of those ridiculous eyes when he squinted down at the documents before him on the table.  His brow was furrowed into a fierce scowl, chapped lips pursed.  He chewed on the inside of his cheek.  

 

He was quite possibly the most attractive person, male or female, Dean had ever seen.  And then he started talking.  

 

Dean started, not having noticed Balthazar shut up and sit down, and he sat forward in his seat.  The voice that came out of that sinful mouth shot straight to his groin - it was lower than he’d expected, and rough, like he’d spent the past few hours gargling gravel and washed it down with black coffee and the smokiest whiskey he could find.  

 

“I’m Castiel Milton.  I teach linguistics at Harvard and I think all of this is bullshit.”

 

He didn’t stand up like Balthazar had.  He didn’t even look up from where he was glaring a hole into the table until he’d finished speaking, and then he scanned the faces around him before looking Dean in directly in the eye.  He only maintained eye contact for a moment before he turned his gaze to the large LED world map on the wall above the table, but Dean was buzzing, electric, like he’d shoved a fork into a socket.  He’d been subjected to stare-downs from Naomi before but those eyes took intensity to another level.  They were sharp, intelligent, and Dean felt like his brain had been x-rayed or something.  He sat there dumbly, staring at Castiel not looking at anyone, and he really needed to remember about his own intelligence and advanced education because he was pretty sure he looked just as stupid and useless as he felt at the moment.

 

The assembled personnel waited awkwardly for Castiel to continue, shifting uncomfortably in their seats, Balthazar emitting a strained laugh.  When it became clear that Castiel had nothing more to say, Naomi cleared her throat and stood, her answering smile even icier than usual.  

 

“Thank you for your....enlightening introductions,” she said tightly, and took her seat again.  She introduced the officers.  Balthazar grinned at everyone, and Dean was glad that Castiel was ignoring the proceedings when Naomi introduced Captain Winchester and Dean fucking _waved_ , for God’s sake.

 

  “The purpose of this morning,” Naomi said after introductions were over, “is to catch you up with the most current wartime situation.  Your clearance levels have been upgraded and you have access to any and all information you need.  Additionally, your card keys will grant you access to all wings of the facility.  Please use this access judiciously, and remember that we operate on a top secret basis here, and that everything you discuss and observe is privileged and sensitive, and not to be shared externally.  Thank you to everyone else for being here this morning.  This briefing will take the place of next week’s, unless something else comes up, so try and lighten up, people!”  There was a smattering of laughter and the atmosphere of the room felt marginally lightened.  Naomi rearranged the stack of documents before her, and Dean took that as his cue and shuffled his own purposefully, studiously avoiding the blue eyes he could suddenly feel boring into the top of his head.

 

~~~~~~

 

The Air Force officer had turned an interesting shade of crimson, from what Castiel could see of his face as it was bowed over the papers in his hands.  It was too bad that Castiel was determined to stay apathetic about everything because he wasn’t bad looking.  When he’d caught the young officer staring at him, he’d been struck by the way the fluorescent lights overhead brought his freckles into stark contrast, and how the artificial glow emphasized that his hair was still wet from the shower he must have taken less than an hour ago.  It was endearingly unprofessional from someone with a captain’s insignia shining on his lapel.  He hadn’t caught the officer’s name when Naomi had introduced everyone, the live map of the world had been too interesting to ignore - it reminded him of the one in Dr. Strangelove, with military maneuvers playing out in real time, and his reality became that much more surreal.  He scanned the man’s uniform, but he couldn’t find a nametag - wasn’t that a uniform violation?  Curious.  But it didn’t matter anyway, because Castiel didn’t care about any of this.  So he turned his attention back to the tabletop, where he placed his hands palm down and splayed his fingers.  He drummed them.  Naomi was talking about something, but the hangnail he discovered on his right ring finger was more interesting than whatever she was saying.  He heard a shuffle of paper, and then Balthazar elbowed him sharply in the ribs.  Castiel jerked his head around to glare at him and found Balthazar staring at Naomi with an apologetic grin plastered across his face.  Castiel glanced up to find Naomi staring at him.  Another quick glance around the room revealed everyone else staring at him as well, save the young Air Force officer who was now frowning at a corner of the ceiling.

 

“Uh,” Castiel said intelligently, “What did I miss?”

 

Naomi sighed and crossed her arms.  Castiel hoped she was beginning to realize how wrong she had been in choosing him as her war expert.  Her constant smile never reached her eyes, and he felt unsettled by the disconnect but held her gaze steadily.  He refused to care, and he refused to be intimidated.  He had never had Balthazar’s amiability, and if he had been strong-armed into providing long-term strategic and political advice, he might as well provide it with as much recalcitrance as possible.

 

“I asked, Dr. Milton, what exactly you knew about what’s been happening with the war,” she said.

 

Castiel leaned back in his chair and shrugged.  “I know what’s been reported.  I know what I overhear at CNN when I’m in the studio.  I know that we were lucky to get France to agree to back us.  I know that the public thinks that the US is making strides against Russia, but since I’m here, I’m assuming that the public has been grossly misinformed and that the balance is shifting in favor of the enemy.  I’m assuming, since I’m here, that whatever expertise Defense has at their disposal has been rendered useless in making any sort of headway, that his war is in danger of either being lost, which could prove catastrophic for President Shurley should he seek reelection, or turning into a protracted stalemate, which could actually potentially be worse than an official loss, when you think about what happened to with Vietnam.  Am I far off?”

 

Naomi’s lips were pressed in a line so thin they were drained of all color and her eyes were hard.  She shook her head and leaned back in her chair as well, mirroring him.  Challenging him.  Two could play at that game.  Castiel leaned back further.  

 

“You’re not wrong, Dr. Milton,” Naomi said.  “While the initial advantage was ours, Russia has proven more....resilient than we had anticipated and budgeted for both economically and militarily.  We underestimated her.”

 

Castiel snorted.  “I hope you know exactly how unsurprised by that I am,” he said derisively.  There was a choked kind of noise from the Air Force officer’s direction, and Castiel saw the older, bearded officer next to him thumping him on the back.

 

Naomi flushed and her nostrils flared with indignation.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

 

Castiel rolled his eyes.  “Come on, Naomi, you know I’ve read your journal entries.  You and your cohorts in the Cabinet would get yourselves bitten by a viper and say fuck off to the antivenom because you’d assume that your inherent Americanness would ensure your survival.  And that,” he leaned forward and rested his chin in his hands, elbows propped up on the table,  “is why I am so ridiculously un-shocked that you managed to somehow ignore decades of history and a very unsubtle political reality that should have informed you of just how formidable an opponent Russia would be in this fight.”

 

Naomi glared daggers at Castiel, who stared coolly back, and the tension in the room  thickened, high-ranking military officers suddenly finding the cuffs of their jackets fascinating, everyone doing their best to make themselves appear as small as possible to avoid exacerbating the situation.  Finally, Balthazar broke the charged silence with a strained laugh.

 

“Don’t mind Cassie, Madame Secretary.  He’s overtired.  He’s a giant sourpuss if he gets any less than nine hours.  Linguistics professors, they’re divas, what can I say?”  He winked at her.  “Why don’t we stop all of this posturing.  You’re both pitbulls, I’ve read your both of your journals, we get it.  I’m sure I speak for Cassie too when I say, much more politely than he knows how to, unfortunately, that I’d love it if you could catch us up to whatever speed you’re all cruising at.”

 

Naomi shifted her gaze to Balthazar, and her eyes were a touch less frosty than they had been while they glared at Castiel.  

 

“Russia is finding more allies more ready to provide assistance than we are.  So far, as I’m sure you know, actual fighting has been relatively minimal, and this is obviously preferable, but as Russia gathers more resources and more pledges of support from her allies -”

 

“Minimal?  You call what’s been going on _minimal?”_

 

“Dr. Milton, in the grand scheme of things, there has been relatively little fighting, and -”

 

“I’m sorry, but how many people have died because of America and Russia decided to  whip out their dicks and see who could piss the farthest?”

 

Balthazar hissed Castiel’s name warningly and the room filled with a generally disapproving rumble and Naomi looked murderous. 

 

“Dr. Milton, you may be able to explain _why_ war happens, but you have no practical experience with _how_ it happens,” she said slowly, her tone dangerous.  “Let me assure you that if it were up to me, you would not be here.  I could name several people I’d rather have instead of you, in fact, but I serve a president who thinks you’re the end-all-be-all, so here you are.  This particular briefing is not a forum in which you are permitted to opine, and I am not soliciting advice from you today.  You specialize in theoretical warfare.  This war is very seriously un-theoretical, and this particular briefing is so you can know what the hell has been going on, cut and dry, no CNN glitter thrown on the facts.  If you’ll please look at page one of the packet I’ve provided -”

 

“Is everything you’re about to tell me within these documents?”  Castiel asked abruptly.

 

Naomi started.  “Yes, it is, so if you’ll look at page one -”

 

Castiel pushed back from the table and stood up, shoving the documents into his messenger bag and slinging it across his chest.  “If everything I need to know today is in this packet, then I’m perfectly capable of catching myself up on my own.  I have three degrees.  I’m very good at reading.”

 

He strode across the room and out the door, blood rushing in his ears, his heart pounding.  _Naomi Engel_ was inconvenienced by his being there?  _Naomi Engel_ had the nerve to tell him to sit down and shut up and listen to _her_ explain war to _him_?  His grandfather had been a five star general.  He was a Milton - you don’t live life with that albatross of a name hanging around your neck without understanding the game of war and politics backwards and forwards.  He didn’t realize that he’d arrived back at his room until he was standing in the middle of it, breathing heavy and sweating slightly.  He tossed his bag on the bed and screwed his eyes shut, turning his face up and willing himself to relax.  When that didn’t work, he took a couple books off of his shelf and threw them at the steel door.  He threw last night’s dinner, too, and when the plate shattered shame supplanted his anger and he wandered into the bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror.  

  
His hair was a mess.  He looked terrible.  He scowled at himself.

 

“Congratulations, asshole,” he growled to his reflection.  “You just threw a tantrum in front of the most powerful people in the country.”  

 

He turned on the sink and splashed cold water on his face, kicking himself for acting like a petulant toddler instead of a thirty-three year old professor.  He glanced at himself in the mirror once more before sighing and heading to the bed.  He pulled the packet from the briefing out of his bag and stretched out across the bed and started reading.

 

~~~~~~

 

The officers and Balthazar and Jess were dismissed shortly after Castiel Milton had stormed out of the room.  Dean and the rest of the officers had sat around and stared at one another in shock while Balthazar looked furious and Naomi looked like she was an inch away from homicide.  Eventually, Naomi had simply stood up and walked out of the room, Jess at her heels.  Balthazar followed, and the rest of the military officers got a hasty dismissal from Lieutenant General Adams and they shuffled out of the room and to their respective wings.

 

“Well, that was one hell of a way to start the day,” Bobby said as they made their way back to the Air Force wing.  Once they got there, Bobby grabbed the knot of his tie and loosened it.  “That Milton boy’s lucky he’s still got lungs.”

 

Dean nodded, still feeling slightly dazed.  It had been the strangest thing to watch Castiel’s studied apathy dissolve into palpable rage.  He’d sat rigid in his chair, fists clenched on top of the table, and his voice had practically crackled with electricity when he’d spoken, low and furious.  Dean was confused though, because Castiel was clearly anti-war and yet was here to advise the government on what to do in a war that they were dangerously close to losing (a fact that Dean knew particularly well, as his department was responsible for the last-ditch means of preventing this outcome).  And why was _Castiel_ here to advise, anyway?  Who the hell was Castiel Milton, and why was he allowed to talk to Naomi Engel like that?  _Was_ he allowed to talk to her that way?  Whatever the case, the guy had massive balls.  Smart, strange, rash, clearly passionate, and hot as all hell.  Dean swallowed.  He was in trouble, and he didn’t even know the guy yet.  Charlie would know how to get to him.  He needed Charlie.

 

~~~~~~

 

Castiel was three pages into the packet when there was a banging at his door and a string of expletives in a British accent.  He sighed and got up to let Balthazar in.

 

“Have you gone insane?”  Balthazar yelled at him once the door was closed.  “I honestly cannot fathom any other explanation for the stunt you just pulled in there.”

 

Castiel sunk into his desk chair.  “I lost my temper.”

 

Balthazar stopped his pacing and whirled around to face him, barking out a sardonic laugh.  “You _lost your temper._ You lost your TEMPER??  Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

 

“What do you want me to say?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know, Cassie, what _can_ you _possibly_ say to rectify this for yourself?  You are bloody lucky I came along, darling, because clearly you need someone to pick up the pieces after you throw a tantrum like a _baby_.”

 

Castiel leaned his head back so it rested on the back of the chair.  He stared at the ceiling as Balthazar explained ad nauseam of how badly Castiel had comported.  It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already told himself, so he tuned his friend out.  Finally, Balthazar sighed and Castiel looked up to see him sliding down the wall across from him to sit on the floor, legs sprawled out in front of himself.

 

“Cassie, you have to help me out here,” he said wearily, eyes closed, bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and index finger.  “This is a ridiculous situation, and I don’t like it any more than you do, but please, I beg of you, on my knees if I have to, _please_ can you put aside your politics and cooperate?  For once in your life, get off of your bloody soapbox and just _work with me_?”

 

Castiel pulled his sweater off and threw it at Balthazar’s head.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Um,” Castiel began, “I’m not really good at this whole after thing.”
> 
> “Me neither,” Dean agreed, tucking his shirt into his pants and securing his belt.
> 
> “So. Um. Good. I’m not interested in anything beyond this.”
> 
> Dean flinched slightly but shrugged. “Your call, man,” he said vaguely.
> 
> Castiel rubbed his nose. “It’s just, you’re kind of a part of everything I hate in this world? So.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we earn the rating! fyi this was my first time writing smut......ever..........in my life.....................

Over the next week and a half, Dean managed to learn exactly nothing useful about Castiel Milton.He milked Charlie for everything she knew or had heard about him, but she was exceedingly unhelpful.

 

“I don’t know, Dean, he’s pretty boring,” she told him, “he teaches at Harvard and he has a gluten allergy.Google him.The internet is a powerful tool.”

 

So he did.

 

An image search came up with several photos of the man trussed up in bespoke suits, posing uncomfortably with Anderson Cooper, and several of him posing uncomfortably with women at book signings - they were smiling like they wanted to eat him alive and he was grimacing like he wanted to crawl under a rock.Dean found a picture of the guy posing uncomfortably with freaking Oprah - which would explain the other women.

 

His Wikipedia page linked him to the rest of the Milton family - so that was why his name had seemed familiar.The Miltons were American royalty, ubiquitous in Washington, the military, and the tabloids.They held more seats in the House and Senate than any single family in history.The Miltons had a presidential legacy, with a two-term presidency marked by significant social progress and marital strife.The Milton name was a powerful one, and you couldn’t go a day without hearing it in the news for one reason or another.

 

The information available about the Milton currently living in the facility was limited, however, and all Dean really gleaned from his Google explorations was that he taught at Harvard and had a gluten allergy.He had written a book that had exploded and thrust him into the spotlight he’d avoided his entire life, and he didn’t want anything to do with this government or what they wanted him to do for them.Charlie didn’t know anything more, and Bobby told him to talk straight or shut up after five minutes of Dean trying to subtly hint at the subject, which left Dean with one last resort: Encyclopedia Sam.It truly was a last resort because Sammy was crazy perceptive when it came to his big brother, and he was exceptionally annoying if he found something he could annoy Dean about.So with no other recourse, Dean left the workshop to Kevin and Pam to clean up and retreated to his room to try and get some information out of his know-it-all brother before dinner.Sam was online when Dean signed into Skype, and before he pressed dial, he took a few deep breaths.

 

“Don’t tell him anything,” Dean reminded himself firmly.“I’m just curious.We don’t get many new people here.I’m just curious.Don’t tell Sam anything.”He nodded shortly, and pressed dial.Sam picked up after three rings, and his gigantor head loomed in front of the camera.

 

“Dude, adjust your computer or scoot your chair back, all I’ve got is a good view of your chin right now.”

 

“Shut up,” Sam said, but Dean heard his chair scrape on the parquet floor of his home office anyway, and then Dean could see the entirety of his brother’s face.“What’s up?We’re not supposed to talk for another few days.”

 

“What, I’m not allowed to talk to my baby brother whenever I want?”

 

“Sure, but you are usually so busy that you have trouble Skyping me when we’ve scheduled it.So I’m just assuming you have some ulterior motive for this call.”

 

“Well, Sammy, you know what they say about what happens when you assume things....”

 

“Shut up.You’re not the only one who’s busy, Dean, what do you need?Jess is supposed to call in like ten minutes.”

 

“Jeez, no need to be snippy, I just had a question.Not even a question, really, more like I ,um, or, like, I was curious about something and I mean, it’s no big deal -”

 

“Dean.”

 

 “But I figured you’d know more than Charlie, and Bobby, ha!Bobby didn’t even let me ask my question, so I was like, Sammy’d know, and -”

 

“Dean.”

 

“I’m not even curious!Just, nobody here knew anything and I mean, like I said, no big deal, but -”

 

“DEAN!”

 

“What?”

 

Sam pursed his lips and crossed his arms.Bitchface #15 seared through the webcam and Sam said, “Seriously, I don’t have a lot of time, and you’re rambling like a crazy person.What do you _want_?”

 

Dean tried very hard not to pout, but a petulant scowl found its way onto his face anyway, and he crossed his arms to match Sam’s posture and said,“Jesus, relax, I’m getting to it.”He stared at Sam for a moment, who frowned right back, and continued: “Have you ever heard of Castiel Milton?”

 

Sam barked out a laugh.“I knew it!I knew you’d ask me about him!”

 

Dean’s mouth dropped open.“What the hell are you talking about?”

 

“Dude, Jess told me about him.Like, the same day he got to the base.She bet me ten bucks that you’d try to get into his pants within the first month.”

 

“What??”

 

“I told her she was crazy.I told her give it two weeks.”

 

Dean gaped.“Is that really what you think of me?”

 

“Dean, you’re not exactly known for your chastity.” 

 

“Fuck you.”

 

Sam snorted.“Whatever.So what about Castiel Milton?”

 

Dean resisted the urge to flip his brother off and leaned back in his desk chair.“I’m just curious about him.”

 

“Mmmmhm.”

 

“Shut the fuck up!Seriously, I’m just curious.I googled him and -”

 

“You _googled_ him.”

 

“I’m telling Jess about that time you shaved your eyebrows off in middle school.”

  
“Okay, okay, so you googled him.”

 

“Yeah, as I was _saying_ , I googled him and I couldn’t find anything useful.”

 

“What constitutes useful information?”

 

“I don’t know, something I could use to get to know him.He seems interesting.He came to our briefing yesterday, yelled at Naomi, and left.”

 

“Yeah, Jess told me.That takes guts.”

 

Dean nodded and scrubbed a hand over his mouth.“It’s just...I don’t know, I’ve never questioned authority, ya know?Growing up the way we did, I can’t even remember a time I just flat-out said no to anyone and he comes in and says fuck you to everyone and all but spat in Naomi’s face and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

 

“Plus he’s apparently good looking.”

 

“I mean, yeah, he’s hot as hell, that doesn’t hurt.But you can’t find shit on the internet.”

 

Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair.He seemed surprised that it didn’t hang down to his shoulders every time he did it, and Dean snorted.Sam yawned lightly and said, “Well, you’re in luck.I’ve been following his career for a while.He’s crazy smart.Like, probably the most important political scholar in forty years.He only teaches linguistics at Harvard so he can have more time to research and write.Personally, I lean towards a more constructivist interpretation of things, but his last book was seriously remarkable.I mean, he changed the way I look at everything, I haven’t read anything that persuasive since I was in college and knew nothing about political theory, and -”

  
Dean snapped his fingers to get Sam’s attention.“Sam!Focus!None of this means anything to me.”

 

“Woops, sorry.Basically, what I think you should take away from his book is that Castiel Milton is one hundred fifty percent against war.Like, it’s not that he’s a pacifist, exactly - his thing is that if a government resorts to war, they have thrown away any legitimacy they might have had.He believes that a diplomatic solution should always be sought and can eventually be achieved, and if you don’t find a diplomatic solution, you just haven’t looked hard enough.He’s pretty anti-government, too, so I’d imagine he’s pretty pissed off down there.”

 

“So why is he here?If he thinks war is so useless, why would they want him?”

 

“President Shurley loves his book.Castiel did comparative work forever- he stayed away from anything too heavy and subjective for years, and then he comes out with this theory that makes total sense and meshes with America’s tendency towards neorealism but is fresh and modern, so Shurley made everyone in his administration read it.Castiel might hate war, but understands it like nobody else.He knows his shit, and I’m totally not surprised that the government stole him.”

 

Dean swiveled around in his desk chair as he processed the information.So that explains the outburst yesterday.He didn’t blame the guy, then, although he shuddered to think what would have happened to him if he’d blown up like that.In Dean’s line of work, if you have an opinion, you keep it to yourself and say “yes sir, thank you sir” and follow whatever order you’ve been given.  

 

Sam wasn’t done, though.He pushed his short bangs off of his forehead and leaned his head on the back of his chair.“His brother says that he’s weird about friends.Super particular and he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

 

Dean sat forward and frowned.“Wait, his brother?”

 

Sam nodded.“Yeah, he’s a lawyer here.Gabriel Milton.”

 

Dean raised his eyebrows.“What’s he like?” 

 

“Annoying.Pulls pranks like he’s twelve.Probably my best friend at work.”

 

“So what else did he say about Castiel?”

 

“Not much.I didn’t really ask, though, so....look, Dean, I’ve gotta go, Jess is calling.”

 

“Alright, alright, I’ll let you go.”  
  
“I don’t want to help you be creepy anymore.”

 

“I’m not being creepy!”

 

“Dean...”

 

“Go away.Go have cybersex with your girlfriend or something.”

 

“Dean!”

 

Dean hung up.He closed his laptop and rested his forehead on it.He groaned.He had so much on his plate already with the missile development and he really didn’t need to be adding this conquest to it, but when he thought about that goddamn Christmas sweater and the way Castiel’s fists had shaken when he talked, he thought he could probably shove some shit around and make room for the guy.

 

He looked at his wall clock and watched the big hand move around its face for a while.At six, he shoved himself away from his desk and threw on his blue Air Force sweater because it was turning into winter and the facility felt chillier than usual.He grabbed his project notebook and left to go get Charlie.She had changed into her informal khakis and blue polo and he glared at her tie-less neck enviously.  

 

“We have the same uniforms, stud, don’t get pissy because you forgot to change,” she told him as they headed down the hallway.She glanced up at him and winked knowingly.“Although you know you’re adorable in that sweater.You’re hoping you’re going to bump into Castiel in the mess!”

 

“Shut up,” Dean groused, shoving Charlie lightly.“So what if I am?Sue me.”

  
Charlie laughed and shoved him back.They shuffled through the line in the mess and Dean scowled at his tray.Meat loaf again.  

 

“So how’s the hands-on work going?”Charlie asked around a mouthful of mashed potatoes.Dean raised his eyebrows at her.

 

“Mature,” he said disapprovingly.He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.“It’s frustrating.Every time I feel like we’re about to have a breakthrough, something happens to fuck it up.Every time Ash does something boneheaded, it puts us back at least a few weeks, and that’s just because we have to make sure the lab isn’t fucked up.”

 

“Yeah, but besides that.How far along do you think we are?”

 

“Not far enough.”

 

“How much longer until we got something workable?”

 

Dean took a bite of his meatloaf and chewed it, thinking.“At this rate?At least fifteen months, probably more.And that’s _if_ we get the funding we keep asking for.”

 

Charlie snorted and raked her fork through her potatoes.“Damn bureaucracy!Dude, if I was topside, I could get us that funding, no problemo.”

 

“I’m glad you’re underground, Bradbury.I’d hate to see you locked up.”

 

Gilda wandered over with her own tray after that, and Dean buried himself in his project notebook.Pam wanted to try something new, which meant departing from the blueprints they already had, which meant drawing up a new budget, which Dean hated, but Bobby hated it even more so he got stuck with the job.He scratched out a few figures and stared hard at the page.He couldn’t make it work with the funds they already had, and they were a cool billion in the hole as it was.He put his pen down and rubbed his eyes.This was ridiculous.It was times like this that he wished he could throw shit and rage at the machine and just take out his frustration like a normal person.How could you demand game-changing weaponry, avant garde type shit, and then shortchange the people of whom you’ve demanded it?But no, Dean was military, and more than that, he was an officer in charge of several subordinates and so he sat down, shut up, and did his job.

 

“How’s it going, bossman?”Charlie asked after Gilda left to go finish her meal with her secretary colleagues and Dean had messed around with the numbers to try and make the new plan work with the money they’d already been allotted.  

 

“Not great,” Dean groaned.“Bobby’s not gonna be happy when I bring this to him tomorrow.”

 

“So don’t.”

 

“What?”

 

“I don’t know, let me work my magic and figure out if this is even sufficiently viable physics-wise before you pour more money into it.Let me talk to Pam tomorrow morning and I’ll work the numbers and let you know.Then you can figure out exactly how much of your hide Bobby’s going to want.”

 

“You’re a lifesaver, Bradbury.”  


“I know, I know, but shut up or you’re going to have an even bigger diva on your hands.Any sign of your man?”

 

Dean flicked a few peas at her for that last little comment but couldn’t help himself and glanced around the mess surreptitiously.No messy black hair and disgruntled expression anywhere.He looked back at Charlie and shook his head, shoulders slumping of their own accord. 

 

“Cheer up, sunshine!There’s always tomorrow!”Charlie sing-songed.“Come on, bud, let’s go watch Battlestar Galactica in me and Pam’s bunk, it’ll make you feel better.”

  
Dean declined the invitation, using the gym and the fact that he’d been slacking on his fitness as an excuse.Really, the whole budgeting thing had really gotten to him and he just needed to run off his frustration for a while.Charlie just shrugged and they dropped their trays off at the tray return and went their separate ways just inside the Air Force wing. 

 

Dean changed into his exercise track pants and tshirt and double knotted his sneaker laces because he didn’t want them to come untied on the treadmill and because Sam wasn’t around to make fun of him for it.There was technically a gym in their wing, but it wasn’t as nice as the one in the wing where the short termers lived, and as an officer, Dean’s card key had access to it, so he used it.He ran through possible permutations of their existing budget as he walked, but it only served to work him up more, so he decided to just not think about money and weapons and being several hundred feet under the ground for the hour it took him to get his cardio in.

 

~~~~~~

 

Castiel had established what he guessed he could call a routine.It was comforting, if fairly humdrum and boring.Jess had been right - he and Balthazar were only occasionally called into the situation room, and even then, it was a quick question or two, or Castiel would be asked to analyze a statement from the Press Secretary to make sure it projected the right image to Russia - strength and resoluteness maintained at all times.Every time he had to do something along those lines, his frustration grew.He hadn’t spent ten years in higher education to sit and edit speeches.Naomi called on him as infrequently as possible, so while he felt guilty about acting so childish in his first briefing, it worked out as well as it could have.He got up at eight every morning and showered.He did his hair and shaved, and brushed his teeth for a full minute like the good dental patient he was.Then he got dressed.He ate breakfast with Balthazar, Jess too if she wasn’t busy, and he made sure he thanked the kitchen staff because they really did a spectacular job making sure he didn’t die of gluten contamination, which was more than he could say for most of the cafeterias he’d experienced in boarding school and at college.The top brass must have wanted to avoid more outbursts at any cost, because there was a thermos of fresh, top-notch coffee waiting for him every morning, and he sucked it down while he read the newspaper and avoided curious eyes in the mess.After breakfast he wandered around the facility for a while, abusing his key card privileges.Usually, he’d follow Jess around until her hints stopped being hints so much as strong suggestions that he find something else to do.He read for a while.Then he checked his email.Then he took a nap and ate lunch.It was relaxing to not be needed.

 

But not being needed left a lot of hours in the day to be filled.He was inherently restless, and after he devoured the entirety of _Scandal_ in four days, Castiel shut off his computer and found the gym.While he ran often at home and had a platinum membership at the local Lifetime Fitness, he had never been a gym rat by any means, and Balthazar made fun of him mercilessly when he caught Castiel traipsing past in sneakers and wind shorts.

 

Castiel preferred to run outdoors.He preferred most aspects of life that weren’t hundreds of feet underground.It was so claustrophobic, pounding out mile after mile on the treadmill, and his frustration only made him run faster, which made him more frustrated because he could run and run and run and get nowhere, and all he could see in front of him was blank wall.The lack of windows got to him more than anything else.Was it sunny?Was it that kind of brisk bleak greyness that preceded snow?He had no way of knowing and it made him want to scream.After a good workout, though, he was generally too tired to do anything but lay on the floor by the elliptical for a while.

 

He was doing just that when the door to the gym beeped and unlocked, and he heard footsteps squeak on rubber soles.Strange.He’d been under the impression that this gym was reserved for short-term residents, and Balthazar had no interest in any physical activity that wasn’t sex, but it didn’t really matter, and he’d spent the past two hours pushing himself hard to try and forget everything, and his muscles were vehemently protesting any movement beyond basics like breathing.So he stayed on the ground and kept his eyes closed, purposely not thinking about anything at all.He heard the treadmill whir to life, and after a while, Castiel pushed himself up off the ground and turned around towards the door to leave.He glanced at the active treadmill and saw that the young Air Force officer from before was running hard on the machine, feet hitting the belt loudly, his face the same deep crimson from before.Castiel walked towards the door and as he passed the officer, he told him, “You might want to take it easier if you’re this worked up after half an hour of cardio.”The officer could take his advice or not, and Castiel could rest easy knowing he’d done his best to help the guy avoid a heart attack.

 

\----------------------

 

“This is my room, Cassie, could you please treat my belongings with a little more respect?”Balthazar barked, rushing over to right the newly upended trashcan, avoiding Castiel as he stalked around the room.

 

“Who does she think she is?”Castiel growled as he made another pass in front of Balthazar.

 

“She’s the Secretary of State, darling, and you’d do well to remember that.”

 

“She’s supposed to be the nation’s head diplomat.That title should imply that she understand the complexities of international relations.”

 

“You know as well as I do that Naomi Engel understands those complexities just fine.”

 

“So why isn’t she _acting like it_?”

 

“Now, I know _you_ of all people understand that during a war, rationale tends to break down a bit.”

 

“That’s what she brought me in for, Balthazar, to make sure the rationale stays rational.Why ask me for my advice if she’s just going to ignore it?”

 

Balthazar sighed and flopped down onto his bed.He watched Castiel pace.

 

Castiel was livid.It had been nearly a month to the day since their arrival at Area 14, and Naomi had finally summoned Castiel to do actual strategic advising.Russia had followed through on some very destructive promises, and the American government and military were at odds as to how to best handle the situation.Castiel had been up to date on this development, his boredom having facilitated sufficient time to keep correspondence with journalists on the ground in Eastern Europe.Unfortunately for Castiel, Naomi hadn’t taken kindly to his suggestion to just “cancel the war.”He had planned to elaborate, truly, because he really did have an idea of how to proceed logically and with minimal casualties, but Naomi had bristled at his flippancy and shut him down fast.The shouting match that had followed had gotten him ejected from the situation room and sequestered to civilian quarters for a week. 

 

Castiel fumed and threatened the furniture vaguely for a long while before Balthazar jumped off the bed and stopped him in his tracks, hands firmly on his shoulders and looking him square in the face. 

  
“My suggestion to you, dearest, is that you go get pissed,” Balthazar informed him solemnly.“I’m not going to get through to you.I’ve seen you like this too often to fool myself into thinking that I’ll be able to crack through that tantrum-y shell in which you’ve so comfortably established yourself, so go to that bar Jess told us about on our first day and get smashed.Stumble back here afterwards and I’ll get you rehydrated, but frankly, you’re annoying the shit out of me and you could use some unwinding.That stick up your ass is getting old.” 

 

After much grumbling, Castiel was deposited at the bar after a change of clothes (dark jeans and his least horrific sweater) and a promise to Balthazar on pain of death that he would at least try and enjoy himself.He ordered four shots of tequila and felt very sorry for himself indeed.

 

~~~~~~

 

“Your boyfriend is at the bar,” Charlie said, leaning against Dean’s doorframe, arms crossed over her chest and a knowing smile on her face.

  
Dean looked up from his project notebook and glared at her smug face.“Not my boyfriend,” he mumbled.

 

“Not if you don’t stop moping around and actually _do_ ****something about it,” Charlie shot back.“Ash is there and he just paged me and told me to tell you.”

 

Dean groaned and smacked his palm over his eyes.“ _Ash_ knows?Christ, this is so unprofessional.Since when is it okay for subordinates to meddle in the love lives of their superior officers?”

 

“Since their superior officer decided to be a giant baby and wander around like a lovesick puppy instead of being assertive and getting what he wants?Dean, I’m telling you this because I love you - you’re depressing.”

 

Charlie squared her shoulders and marched into the room.She flung open Dean’s wardrobe and started rifling through his clothes.

 

“What the hell you think you’re doing, Bradbury?”Dean barked, shoving himself up off of his bed.  

 

“Helping you out.”She made a satisfied noise and turned to Dean, shoving his service blues into his arms.“Now sharpen up, Winchester, and go get your man so your unit can stop feeling sorry for you.” 

 

So Dean changed into his blues and admired himself in the long mirror that was nailed to the wall next to his desk.He attempted to tame his hair but a nervous twitch of his hand had resulted in a giant glob of gel plastering his hair unattractively to his forehead, so he dunked his head under the sink to fix it and decided to make up for his hair disaster with a winning smile.He practiced it in front of the mirror and promised himself that it would be less like a grimace and more like a winning smile when it was time to break it out.He laced up his shoes (thank God he’d decided to polish them today, despite it being his off day) and was one step out the door before he remembered his name tag and the reaming Bobby had given him the last time he’d been spotted without it.He pinned it onto his shirt and made his way to the bar.

He tried his best not to psych himself out on the way there, but by the time he reached the bar in the bureaucracy wing of the facility, he was actively focusing on his breathing to make sure he wasn’t going to hyperventilate and faint in front of Castiel.That would not get him laid.  

  
Area 14’s bar was a surprisingly luxurious place.The bureaucracy wing was done up in warm earth tones and muted yellows, with a lot of faux-Tiffany glass fixtures and plush leather seating arrangements.Designed to make sure visiting politicians and assorted dignitaries had a respite from the industrial blandness of the rest of the base, the bar kept with the old-fashioned Upper East Side-style swankiness.Dean didn’t get the convenient civilian discount, so he didn’t spend as much time there as he would have otherwise, but he and the unit got drinks about once a month to make sure they weren’t running themselves ragged.Dean entered the double doors and scanned the room.A fair few people were seated on high stools around high tables, but the dull yellow glow from the old fashioned wall sconces made it difficult to make out faces.His gaze shifted to the bar itself and he saw the unmistakable outline of Castiel Milton hunched over the bartop.He’d recognize that mop of hair anywhere.Dean was fully prepared to waltz right over, 100% confident, but then Castiel turned a little so Dean could see his profile, and he threw back a shot of something that could be vodka or tequila ( _gluten allergy_! Dean’s brain supplied uselessly) and Dean watched Castiel’s adam’s apple bob when he swallowed the drink and suddenly the painting on the wall next to Dean‘s head was the most interesting thing in the room.

 

The part of Dean that wasn’t a prepubescent boy screamed at the rest of him to grow the fuck up and get a move on, a suggestion with which his dick agreed wholeheartedly ( _what is your PROBLEM Dean Winchester did you NOT see what his throat just did over there_ ) so after several moments of casual panic, Dean spun on his heel and attempted what he thought could probably pass as a sexy saunter up to the bar.He rapped on the bartop (and cringed inwardly - _seriously, Dean, what movie did you pull that from?_ ) and ordered a whiskey, neat.He watched Castiel out of the corner of his eye and was mildly horrified when the man didn’t immediately look up from his shot glasses and fall head over heels in love, but he played it cool and took a sip of his whiskey.After three minutes of silent drink-sipping, Dean decided once and for all that he would have to take his destiny into his own hands and so he positioned himself painstakingly casually on his stool, plastering what he hoped was arakish grin on his face and turned to Castiel.

 

“You know, if this was the Cold War, we could keep each other warm,” he said over his glass, hoping for suave and trying not to be floored when a pair of thoroughly unimpressed blue eyes flicked to meet his.

 

~~~~~~

 

“Really?That’s what you go for?”Castiel intoned.

 

The officer’s grin slipped slightly, but he saved it quickly and shrugged carelessly.“Thought I’d go for clever,” he said, “you never know.You talked to me, though, so I’m counting it as a win.”

 

Castiel snorted and threw back his seventh shot.His astronomic tolerance was useful when Gabriel dragged him out for drinks, but when it counted, he wished he could get drunk as easily as a normal person.As it was, he was only starting to feel loose and warm and the good grey area between tipsy and only-kind-of-drunk.He leaned forward on his stool and rested his chin in his hand.He studied the officer’s face.He liked it.It was open and honest and freckled and he had a little scar in his eyebrow which was interesting and he had a nametag on this time.

 

“Winchester,”Castiel read.

 

The officer started slightly.“How did you know?”

 

“Nametag,” Castiel said, poking the shining plastic pinned to the left side of his blue shirt with the tip of his index finger.

 

The officer glanced down and grinned.“I always forget about this thing.Dean.Call me Dean.”

 

“You weren’t wearing that in the briefing, Dean.Or that time you came into my gym.”

 

Dean nodded and sipped his .“You’re Castiel Milton.”

 

“Obviously.”

 

“My little brother is a big fan of your book.”

 

Castiel rolled his eyes and made a face.“Eeugh.Can we not talk about my book, please?It got me into this whole mess and tonight I’m supposed to be ‘unwinding.’” Castiel lifted his hands to use air quotes, making a scornful noise in the back of his throat.

 

Dean laughed and took another sip of his drink.“Fair enough, I get that.So.No work talk.”

  
“Please and thank you.”

 

“So.Unwinding, huh?”

 

“Yes.Apparently I’ve got a stick up my ass, and not the fun kind.”

  
Dean choked on his mouthful of whiskey.

 

“Sorry?”

 

“Balthazar thinks I’m wound too tight and that I’ve been a huge downer so he made me go and spend tonight drinking in the hopes that I’ll calm down.But everything is so frustrating and confusing and I’m so mad and irritated and he got mad when I threw his trashcan.”

 

Dean cocked an eyebrow.“You threw his trashcan?”

 

“Well, I didn’t mean to, but I was angry and it was there.”Castiel huffed out a sigh.He cocked his head to the side and squinted at Dean.He was just drunk enough to think that his next thought was a great idea.He reached across the space between them and placed his hand on Dean’s thigh.You would really only be able to notice it if you were standing directly next to them in the dimness of the bar, but its presence was unmistakable to Dean, who swallowed heavily and glanced down at his lap, where Castiel’s hand was kneading the meat of his thigh slowly.

 

“Cas...” Dean started quietly, voice gaining a huskiness that Castiel wanted to lick out of his mouth.

 

“I like that.Call me that,” Castiel said.“Stop me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’m reading this incorrectly.Do you want to get out of here?”

 

Dean exhaled slowly and shakily, and nodded.Castiel grinned widely, the tequila loosening his lips for the first smile he’d produced in well over a month.

 

“We’ll have to go to my room because I’m grounded,” Castiel informed Dean seriously, throwing back his last shot of tequila and getting off of his chair.Dean stared at him blankly, so Castiel said, “Don’t worry about it.”

 

He paid their tabs , and grabbed Dean’s hand and led him out of the bar.

 

~~~~~~ 

 

Dean stared at the back of Cas’ head the entire way back to Cas’ wing.It all felt very surreal, and even though he kept telling himself that it was really happening, he didn’t really believe that it was really happening.Cas was silent the entire time, and it was early enough that there were still quite a few people milling about the facility.It was like a reverse walk of shame, feeling everyone’s eyes on them as they made their way through the mess, which was just emptying out after dinner, but Dean couldn’t find it in himself to care.Cas was gorgeous, loose and slightly flushed from the liquor.Dean stopped in their progress down the corridor towards Cas’ room and frowned.Cas noticed and stopped as well, facing Dean with a confused tilt to his mouth.  
  
“Is there anything wrong?”he asked in that liquor-smoky voice and Dean looked at him closely.He seemed lucid enough, but there had been enough shot glasses in front of him that Dean felt slightly uncomfortable with this.

 

“I just want to make sure I’m not taking advantage - you’ve been drinking and I’m not that kind of guy,” Dean said slowly.

 

Castiel scowled.“I assure you, Dean,” he scoffed, “I’m perfectly equipped to make this decision.”

 

“Are you sure?I’m totally up for whatever this is about to be, but I’m not going to do anything if you aren’t completely cool with it.”

 

Before he could say anything else, Dean found himself pressed up against the wall with six feet of Harvard professor attached to his mouth.Castiel pulled back long enough to say, “This is me enthusiastically consenting to any and all sexual activity from here on out.”He reattached himself to Dean’s mouth, licking his way in determinedly, and Dean had to consciously tell his knees not to get weak when Cas shoved a hand into Dean’s hair and pulled.Cas’ other hand was pulling insistently at the bottom of Dean’s shirt, and Dean grabbed his wrists hurriedly, separating them enough to where Dean didn’t feel like he was about to combust.

 

“Totally, 100% down for this, man, but let’s take it somewhere more private than the hallway,” Dean panted.

 

Cas nodded and spun around, leading Dean quickly down the corridor, stopping at one of the doors and shoving his card through the reader to unlock his door.He turned back around to Dean once the door was opened and heaved him into the room after him, pushing him against the cold steel of the door once it was closed and attacking his throat with vigor, sucking bruises below the collar and pulling moans out of Dean that he couldn’t even be embarrassed about.  

 

They kissed for what felt like ages, and Dean swore he’d never been kissed so good, that this couldn’t get better and then Cas let out this whimper and Dean managed to reverse their positions so that Cas was up against the wall and Dean slid a thigh in between Cas’ legs.Cas rutted up against it and the noise he made then reminded Dean that they were wearing far too many clothes.It was a combined effort to divest each other of their pants, since Dean seemed to have forgotten how to work a belt, and Cas couldn’t remember how to work his button fly, but getting Cas’ sweater off was easy, and Dean thanked whatever God was in charge of sex that Charlie had picked the uniform without the tie.Once they had stripped down to their underwear, Dean felt slightly overwhelmed by the expanse of ridiculous body in front of him.Cas’ skin was so smooth and he had a mole over his nipple and it was the most gorgeous thing Dean had ever seen and he just had to put his mouth on it, but when his breath brushed over Cas’ nipple Cas actually growled and whatever plans Dean had had to worship his body were thrown out the window when he was fairly thrown onto the bed, Cas boxing him in with his limbs and staring down at Dean hungrily.

 

“I really like your freckles,” Cas rasped, eyes wide and pupils blown so much that his irises were a thin ring of blue around them.Dean had lost most of his brain power by that point so he just nodded dumbly and let Cas kiss him some more and bite the meat of his shoulder.  

 

They mutually lost their underwear at some point, and Cas rocked against Dean’s hip, rubbing his erection against his skin, Dean rocking back and searching for friction of his own, and it was good, so good, but not enough, so Dean waited until Cas was occupied sucking a bruise onto his collarbone to lick his palm and reach between them to take them both in hand.He stroked them both slowly, almost languidly, loving the slick slide of their cocks together and loving the way Cas squeezed his eyes shut and couldn’t seem to close his mouth all the way as he bowed his head over Dean’s shoulder.He thrust up to meet his strokes, and Cas did the same, and he felt like he could have kept up that rhythm for hours and never gotten tired of it, never gotten tired of how fucking responsive Cas was to every touch and every twist of his wrist, but then Castiel gritted his teeth and growled, “More,” and Dean couldn’t refuse a request like that.

 

Dean sped up his strokes, moving the hand on their cocks faster and harder, running over the heads on the upstroke and smearing precome down the shafts.Cas started to attempt a sloppy kiss when Dean twisted his wrist one more time and bit down on Cas’ neck and then Cas was coming with a strangled cry, hot and hard and fast all over Dean’s fist, Dean close behind.Dean worked them both through the aftershocks, Cas’ chin tucked over Dean’s shoulder and his breath hot in Dean’s ear.He wiped his hand on the sheets and they came down together, Cas wrapped around Dean like an octopus, their legs tangled together in the sheets.It was all Dean could do not to smile like a fool as they drifted off to sleep.

 

~~~~~~

 

Castiel dozed for a good hour or two, and he woke up still slightly drunk, loose-limbed and warm all over.He blinked awake and found his face mashed in the toned chest of Dean Winchester, a presence in his bed that he remembered but was sober enough to feel slightly ashamed about.It wasn’t fair to Dean, being used like this, but Balthazar had told him to unwind, so he had unwound.He would have to kick Dean out soon, before it got awkward for both of them, but he wasn’t actually a dick, contrary to popular belief, so he took the time to raise his head slightly and stare at Dean a little.

 

He was younger than Castiel by a few years, but sleeping, he seemed even younger, unstressed and unpretentious, which Castiel preferred infinitely to the caricature who had come onto him at the bar.He couldn’t abide pretension.He glanced down at the floor and saw Dean’s captain’s insignia glinting from his uniform, and he scowled.Nothing ruined a post-coital glow quite like remembering that your bedfellow represented everything you loathed most in the world.Castiel huffed and rolled over onto his back, stretching his arms to cross behind his head.He stared at a crack in his ceiling until he felt Dean stir next to him.He felt Dean’s hand snake across his torso and he cringed.

 

“You should go.I’m grounded,” Castiel said.

 

He felt Dean sit up and then he felt his eyes on him.  

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“Naomi grounded me.This was nice.I was stressed, and frustrated, and you helped me feel better.So, um, thank you.”

 

“Uh, any time?”

 

A few moments passed in silence, and then Castiel felt the covers shift beside him and then he saw Dean stand up and collect his uniform, putting it on piece by piece.Castiel sat up and watched him button up his shirt.They stared at each other.

 

“Um,” Castiel began, “I’m not really good at this whole after thing.”

 

“Me neither,” Dean agreed, tucking his shirt into his pants and securing his belt.

 

“So.Um.Good.I’m not interested in anything beyond this.”

 

Dean flinched slightly but shrugged.“Your call, man,” he said vaguely.

  
Castiel rubbed his nose.“It’s just, you’re kind of a part of everything I hate in this world?So.”

 

Dean stared at him.“Gee, thanks.”

 

“No, I mean, you’re attractive and pleasant and I enjoyed this immensely, but it’s a....principle thing.”

 

“Principle.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You don’t want to like me because of your principles.Not because you think I’m a shitty person.”

 

“Essentially.”

 

“But you like me.”

 

“I could probably like you.”

 

“But you can’t because of your principles.”

  
Castiel scratched his belly.“Yes.”

  
Dean straightened his nametag and grinned widely at Castiel.“Well then, Doctor Milton, I’m just going to have to prove you wrong.”

 

And he turned on his heel and left the room.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because I like you, and you like me.”
> 
> “I never said that.”
> 
> “You said, and I quote, you could like me. It’s the same thing.”
> 
> “Is it?”
> 
> “Sure. You could like me, which implies a strong possibility of liking ensuing at some point in time, so I decided to hasten that inevitability because I like you.”
> 
> Castiel shook his head. “You’re something.”
> 
> Dean grinned even wider. “So they tell me. So where are we?”
> 
> “In the mess.”
> 
> “No, Cas, I don’t mean where are we geographically, I mean...you and me. Where do we stand?”

Unfortunately for Dean, operation Win-Cas’-Heart was waylaid by Charlie’s confirmation that Pam’s newest plan was physically feasible.This was great for the program, since Dean and his team had been stumped for months, progress stagnating and morale plummeting.So, yeah, it was great that Pam had come up with something new and exciting that could actually maybe work without needing to scrap everything they’d developed up to that point.What wasn’t great was the price tag.

 

“Are you serious?” Dean moaned when Kevin handed him the revised budget.He ran a hand through his hair, frustrated.“They’re never gonna go for this.”

 

Kevin shrugged and smiled apologetically.“Sorry, Captain, but we tried it every which way, and this is the lowest figure we could deal with, and even this is cutting it closer than I’m totally comfortable with.”

 

Dean sighed and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.Adding an extra billion or two on top of the money they’d already asked for would end up being a mere drop in the bucket if this worked and they created a weapon that could cut the war short by years and therefore save several metric fucktons of cash, but government suits were notorious for ignoring the big-picture benefits of anything and pinching pennies when real support was needed.Dean hated this part of his job.He signed up for the gig in the first place because he liked to build shit, not because he wanted to rub shoulders with and beg for money from people who demanded results while withholding the funds needed for said results.He did the military thing, not the political thing, and so he resigned himself to a very uncomfortable couple of days while he proposed the new budget and watched it get shot down.

 

He stood up from the chair in which he’d been (unsuccessfully) hiding from his team and rolled his shoulders, bracing himself for the new asshole Bobby was about to rip for him.It was only the third one this week, but Dean had a feeling that this one would be one of the worst ones Bobby was capable of dishing out.Dean was grateful to have Bobby as his superior in this place, since Bobby knew how Dean worked and let him do his thing on whatever timetable he wanted, as long as he was fiscally efficient and delivered results whenever the top brass came sniffing around.Bobby was relatively hands-off and let Dean run the show for the most part, which was fine because Dean liked his team, had handpicked them individually, but Bobby being superior officer meant that if any dramatic shifts in the plan arose Dean had to report them, and if there was anything Bobby hated more than Dean’s bullshitting, it was bureaucracy and paperwork.This would result in mountains of paperwork and hours on video conferences with the biggest scrooges in Washington.

 

Dean knocked on Bobby’s office door and was so absorbed in pretending that this wasn’t happening that he didn’t hear Bobby shouting at him to come in.The door opened and Dean startled, finding himself with a faceful of irritated Bobby Singer, who was scowling something fierce and asking Dean if he’d gone temporarily deaf, or if he’d possibly left his brain at home today.So far, a great start.Dean rolled his eyes and shouldered Bobby aside and flopped down into the chair in front of Bobby’s desk.

 

Bobby took his own seat and stared hard at Dean.

 

“You’re sweating bullets, idgit, do I gotta get you a bucket?” he growled.

 

Dean chewed on his left thumbnail and stared hard at a splotch on the wall behind Bobby’s head, afraid he’d catch on fire if he actually looked the guy in the eye.“So,” he began around his thumb, “You know that old phrase ‘Don’t shoot the messenger?’”

 

Bobby sighed and leaned back in his chair.“Christ, is it Miles again?I’m sick of hearing about that one.”

 

“No, no, it’s not Ash.This actually isn’t that big a deal!Really, if you think big picture, it’s actually really great!Totally worth it, in fact, and so if you could keep that in mind when you take a look at this, I think you’ll actually be totally cool with everything.”

 

Bobby narrowed his eyes.“What did you do?”

 

“Nothing I promise!”Dean smiled his most winning smile, which only made Bobby’s scowl deepen further.He cleared his throat and went on, “So you know how we’ve been trying to figure out for a while why nothing was working?The numbers just wouldn’t add up?Well, Pam was messing around and figured out was that it just wasn’t aerodynamic enough.Not the right shape and too heavy.”

 

Bobby nodded.“That makes sense.So what?”

 

“So, she drew up some new plans and Charlie says it could work, if we could figure out the right metals.”  
  
Bobby sighed again.“I don’t like where this is going, boy.”

 

Dean took the revised budget out of his pocked, unfolded it, and shoved it across the desk to Bobby.“You’re not gonna like it at all.”

 

Bobby glanced at the paper and his face flushed.“Are you KIDDING me?” he shouted.

 

Dean shoved himself up and out of his chair, moving around behind Bobby’s desk to lean over his shoulder to walk him through the budget.

 

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but look at this.”He pointed at the column where Kevin had listed the quantities needed and the prices of certain metals.“This is the bare minimum we need for experimentation, and these prices are the lowest we could possibly purchase them for.And here,” he pointed to another column.“This is just what we need to maintain basic operations.We’re running low on basically everything, and we can only recycle so much before we just can’t use something anymore.”He stood up.“We cut as many corners as we could with this, Bobby, but we’re starting almost from scratch and that costs money.This could work.They keep asking for progress, and this is progress.”

 

Bobby sighed a third time and scrubbed a palm over his face.

 

“Okay,” he said slowly.“We’ll see what we can do.I’ll make a call and get us facetime. You start your presentation right now and have it ready for tomorrow because I want this dealt with and rubber stamped as soon as fucking possible.Dismissed.”

 

Dean gave a lazy salute and hurried to his room to boot up his computer and create a powerpoint so beautiful that it would convince even the most tightfisted politicians to drop billions more taxpayer dollars into a weapons program that said taxpayers had no idea even existed.Some (read: most) days, Dean really hated his job.

 

\----------------------

 

Three days and five excruciating meetings later, Dean had lost several years of his life but had gained the needed funding and then some.He broke the good news to his team over a bottle of exquisitely agedBobby had squirreled away for just such an occasion.It wasn’t every day a codger and a greenhorn officer persuaded Uncle Sam to open his wallet as wide as it could go.  

 

“Way to go, cowboy, we knew you could pull it off,” Pam purred over her tumbler.  
  
Dean rolled his eyes and replied, “You didn’t make it easy for me, Barnes.I’ve never even heard of some of those alloys.”

 

“Neither have they.They don’t care, they don’t want details, you know that.The point is that we do the damn thing and lay low after we win the war for them.”

 

This conversation was veering towards territory that Dean knew was best avoided, so he topped off Pam’s glass and wandered over to where Charlie and Kevin had their heads bowed over some sort of schematic.Dean huffed a laugh and cuffed Kevin upside the head lightly.

 

“C’mon, guys, close up shop.You’ve got the night off and I stole Bobby’s Lagavulin specifically for you!”

 

Kevin started to say something about how he was underage when Charlie cut him off and said, “And I know of a certain captain who will want us to hit the ground running come Monday, and I prefer a more leisurely approach.So thanks for the , buddy, consider it brainfood for your two favorite underlings who are in no way pushing for a raise.”

 

Dean threw his head back and laughed.He was in too good a mood to grouse at them, and he really did appreciate how hard his team worked, even if he wished they could let their hair down every once and a while.He’d heard it did a person good.He told them not to kill themselves over it and walked back across the room, dropping heavily into a chair and watching Ash make an ill-advised attempt at getting into Pam’s pants.She’d eat him alive. 

 

He sipped his .It was seriously good stuff, and he made a mental note to nose around Bobby’s office more often because God knows what other treasures he’d hidden away where he thought Dean wouldn’t find them.This new funding was a serious boost for the program.The senators had grumbled at the numbers he insisted on, and he’d had to play hardball, which he was sure had given him a grey or two, but in the end, they’d caved and gave him five million more just to get him to shut up.Negotiating gave Dean ulcers, but he was damn good at it - his specialty was just being obnoxious and poking at the issue until the other party caved.  

 

He leaned back in his chair and cradled his tumblr between his hands, letting his palms get cold from the ice and wet from the condensation on the sides of the glass.He watched his team. He was struck by how damn lucky he was to have them all.Unconventional choices all, and he remembered how Bobby’s eyebrows had flown into his receding hairline when he’d brought him the list when all this started.But the old man had trusted his judgement, since this was Dean’s project, and when he saw how well they all had gelled from the get go, Bobby had been forced to admit that there couldn’t be a better team than the one Dean had put together.

 

He’d known Second Lieutenant Charlie Bradbury since the Academy.She had been a freshman when he was a junior, and their friendship had been a natural thing to fall into.They’d bonded over a mutual love of Star Trek, engineering, and coffee, although Charlie insisted on defiling hers with so much sugar that even Sam, king of girlie beverages, would have been concerned.They’d been the perfect academic team, since Dean couldn’t understand theoretical physics to save his life, and Charlie never could quite figure out how to apply the theoretical to real life and build something.She was a whiz at computers, though, and Dean was still shocked that she hadn’t been caught and expelled and thrown in jail for all of the hacking she’d done while they were in school.They’d lost touch when Dean had been shipped off, but when Bobby had chosen Dean to lead Project Impala, Charlie had been the first person Dean had tracked down.

 

While Charlie had managed to avoid jailtime with her clandestine computer activity, 

Airman First Class Ash Miles hadn’t been so lucky.Charlie knew him, and Dean had rescued him from ten-to-fifteen on the condition that he use his ample skill to write code for the man.Ash had been morally opposed to it, but news of a change in bunkmates had made him sign the dotted line and put on a uniform.At the moment, Ash was bored because they didn’t exactly have a prototype he could program yet, so he amused himself (to the frustration of his teammates) by experimenting with whatever materials and electronics he could get his hands on.The destruction that came with his boredom was bleeding the program dry, but he was too good at what he did to let him go, so Bobby ground his teeth and imagined ripping the kid’s head off in the privacy of his office.  

 

Dean had met Pamela Barnes through Bobby, actually, while he’d still been in school.Dean had been struggling with some project or another and couldn’t figure out how to fit part A into slot B and just make it work, and after weeks of him following Bobby around and whining about it, Bobby had given him Pam’s number and informed him that if anyone could help his sorry ass, it was her, and to stop bugging him.So Dean had called, and she’d turned out to be the most brilliant engineer Dean had ever met.She had a sort of preternatural sense of how something could go together, could build it in her head and work through all the kinks before she’d even drawn it out and built it.Dean was more of a trial and error kind of guy, but when Bobby had impressed upon him the cruciality and potential net cost of what they were attempting to do, Dean remembered how efficiently Pamela had worked and called her up again, this time with a significantly more high-stakes assignment, despite her being a civilian.She’d agreed to come aboard immediately.

 

Kevin Tran rounded out the group, and he was perhaps the oddest choice Dean could have made.He was just a kid, nineteen years old, with a distinctly nervous temperament that Dean attributed to years of self-imposed pressure to excel academically.And he had excelled academically, advanced placement classes all through high school, juggling those with orchestra, his church youth group, his senate internship, and junior ROTC.He’d gotten into the Academy and excelled there, too, until Dean plucked him out of his classes and brought him into the fold.Kevin occupied a strange position, not a civilian like Pamela, not yet an officer, but he was a genius.He was good with the theoretical stuff, so he and Charlie worked together well, but he was also good with his hands, so he was a great asset to Dean and Pam.He had a head for numbers and was good at wrangling Ash.He was invaluable, and despite his youth and lack of real credentials, he held his own and Dean couldn’t be prouder of the kid.

 

This was what Dean loved about his job.When you’re in the military, your fellow soldiers become your family.When you’re deployed and in the trenches, you need to know that the person next to you would die for you because you’d do the same for them.Dean doesn’t like to think about his time overseas, it’s still a little too raw to really consider for any length of time, but that sort of necessary camaraderie had been established here, with this small, ragtag group of brains, and they were doing groundbreaking work they could take pride in.It made the routine claustrophobia and the helplessness Dean felt more bearable to know that he could come here and be at home.

 

Whiskey always made him sentimental, and today’s been a good day, so he lets himself think about Cas now that he has the time.The good booze flowing in his system made him feel a little less silly about literally not being able to get the guy out of his mind.Dean was a 28 year old man, not a fifteen year old girl, and he had always been fairly good about compartmentalizing everything.Not since Cassie had he felt so fixated on someone, so incapable of going about his business without thinking about them, and to say that it was frustrating would be an understatement.A week later he could still feel where Cas’ lips had attached themselves to the spot below his left ear - a quick press of his fingers there confirmed that the bruise was still ripe, and he relished it.A hickey was all kinds of unprofessional, but it had saved a lot of embarrassing beating around the bush when Charlie saw it, whooped loudly, and informed the rest of the team.Getting kicked out of Cas’ bed so soon after the hottest sex he’d had in a long time had stung, but once he’d gotten over the initial whiplash of the whole thing, he was left feeling more intrigued than pissed off or hurt.He’d seen at least three sides of Castiel Milton so far - the furious and brilliant scholar who told Naomi Engel herself to fuck off (albeit not in so many words), the aggressive and ridiculous sexy man who’d shamelessly propositioned him and then gave Dean an orgasm so good he had felt like jelly until hours later, and the awkward, almost bashful guy who had seemed completely unaware of how to deal with someone he’d just fucked thoroughly.Which one was default Cas?The guy was a puzzle, and he wanted to solve it.And the fact that Cas had straight up told Dean that he liked him (or _could_ like him...potato, potahto) only spurred him on.Dean was very good at negotiating, at being persistent, and he was damn charming.Cas didn’t stand a chance.

 

~~~~~~

 

“You did WHAT??”

 

Balthazar stared at Castiel with his mouth agape.Castiel stared at the ceiling above where he laid stretched out on Balthazar’s bed.  

  
“You heard what I said,” Castiel said flatly.

 

“You’re right, Cassie, my auditory skills haven’t failed me yet, I heard what you said.What I’m not comprehending is _why_ you kicked Dean out of your bed.”

 

“He was a nice distraction from my frustrations, and I didn’t see why we needed to try and maintain any pretense of intimacy.”

 

“You are a piece of work, that’s what you are.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

“Just to make sure we’re talking about the same person, Dean Winchester.Air Force officer?Late twenties?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Dirty blonde hair?Wears it in a spiky sort of pompadour?”

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“Green eyes that could stop traffic?”

 

“Yes, Balthazar, what’s your point?”

 

“My point, darling, is that he is hands down one of the most attractive men I’ve ever seen, and you had him in your bed, until you kicked him out and told him you didn’t want anything else from him.”

 

Castiel sighed and rolled over to face Balthazar, who had leaned back in his desk chair and crossed his arms over his chest, watching Castiel with a thoroughly unimpressed look on his face.  

 

“I don’t see why this is such a big deal,” Castiel mumbled.

 

“It’s not, except that you’re infinitely less horrible when you’re getting laid.Was he bad in bed?Did he snore?I’m trying to figure out what your major malfunction is, here.”

 

“No, Balthazar, he was fine.It was good.More than good, actually, it was....fantastic.He was.......fantastic and - “Balthazar coughed.“It was fine.He was great.”

 

“Is he stupid, then?”

 

“No.He handled himself very well in conversation, and he’s in charge of whatever it is the Air Force are doing here.”

 

“And we both know he’s not ugly.So there’s nothing wrong with him.You’re the weird one.”

  
Castiel huffed.“I thought we’d established that a long time ago.”

 

Balthazar stood up and crossed the room, flopping down next to Castiel.“So if this is just a case of Cassie Milton not knowing how to deal with something that could be really great, then the onus is on you.Do you like him?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Could you like him?”

 

“Probably.”

 

“Do you want to pursue anything?”

 

“I don’t _know_ , Balthazar, can we stop talking about this?”

 

Balthazar sighed and stared hard at the side of Castiel’s head.Castiel stared at the far wall.Balthazar shoved him off the bed.  

 

“Fine,” Balthazar said, “but I can tell this is something you’re going to refuse to acknowledge in favor of being prickly and throwing yourself into your work, so I’d prefer if you’d do it elsewhere.This is a brood-free area.”

 

Castiel pushed himself off of the ground and brushed dust off of his slacks, scowling at Balthazar.Balthazar grinned widely at him and waved, wiggling each finger individually.  

 

“You know where the door is, darling,” he sing-songed.

 

Castiel yanked the door open and stalked down the hallway into his room.Castiel was irritated.Irritation seemed like it was quickly becoming an inherent quality, and he made a mental note to try and be more positive at some point.Balthazar was right, as usual, and Castiel was irritated.He had never been good at people, and relationships had been thin on the ground most of his adult life.He could lie to himself most of the time and say it was because he was dedicated to his career, but in the cold light of day he was forced to acknowledge that it was because he just didn’t know how to do them.He was either too intense too fast or he just couldn’t figure out what the other person wanted from him before they called it quits.Sex was easy.He knew how to get it, he knew how to feel good and make someone else feel good for a while, but when it was all over, he had no idea what to say.So he slept around and ignored whatever emptiness came with knowing that it wasn’t actually what he wanted.Whatever.It didn’t matter, his career was off the charts and he had even had time to finish _The Pillars of the Earth_.That was something to be proud of, right?

 

Castiel groaned and laid face down on the floor.Tomorrow was a new day.The base was huge, there were who-knows-how-many people working in it, he was unlikely to see Dean again.Dean and his straight nose and his freckles and those minuscule gold flecks in his irises and the way he clenched his jaw and grimaced when Castiel twisted his wrist just so and - NO.

 

Castiel shoved himself up into a sitting position, his legs splayed out in front of himself.He slapped his own cheek lightly to shake himself out of whatever track his mind was currently attempting to chug along, and decided once and for all that it was three a.m. and he had a brief with Naomi at nine to look forward to, and that he should really get some sleep.In his bed.His nice, soft bed that still smelled like Dean.He’d call housekeeping first thing when he woke up.

 

\----------------------

 

For six days, he was able to believe that the base truly was big enough to avoid Dean for the rest of however long he was meant to stay there.He saw several of the same faces more than once in the mess, in the halls, in briefings, but never Dean’s, and any disappointment he might have felt about that was bludgeoned over the head by his relief that he could avoid any awkward “I’ve seen you naked and I know what your cock feels like in my hand” conversations.Was that a normal conversation to have with people you’d slept with before?Castiel wouldn’t know, as he lived in Boston and Boston was actually large enough to never have to see a hookup ever again (unless he happened to be a tenured French professor, but Castiel doesn’t like to think about that little slip-up).Whatever, the point was, Castiel was on cloud nine because for six days, the only things Castiel had to angst over was the fact that the war was dragging on and that Naomi still hated his guts. 

 

And then on the seventh day, Castiel was in the mess, in line for breakfast, when he heard someone clear their throat behind him.Assuming it was someone trying to get to the fruit buffet, Castiel apologized and stepped aside, heading instead towards the juice bar.The person behind him laughed and tapped him on the shoulder.Castiel frowned and turned around, ready to ask if they needed anything, and found himself nearly nose to nose with Captain Dean Winchester.Castiel swallowed with an audible click and Dean just grinned at him.

  
“Long time no see,” Dean said, and the smile on his face was audible in his voice, a laughing uptilt to the end of his sentence, making it almost a question.Castiel just nodded.“So where are you eating?”Dean asked.Castiel just nodded.Dean chuckled and took Castiel’s tray from him, carrying his own in his other hand.Castiel spun around on his heel and led Captain Dean Winchester to the table that Balthazar and Jess had claimed for the morning.Jess seemed ecstatic to see Dean, smiling her kilowatt smile and waving him over enthusiastically.Balthazar just burst out laughing.Castiel ignored them both and sat down, grabbing his mug and filling it with coffee.He gripped the mug with both hands and sipped the liquid, staring at the table and ignoring his tastebuds blistering when it was too hot to actually consume.Dean slid Castiel’s tray in front of him, and plopped down in the chair next to him.Castiel picked at his food and Dean attempted to engage him in conversation, but when Castiel couldn’t find any words to answer with, Dean just smiled at him and talked eagerly with Jess, and Jess explained to Castiel that Dean was her fiancé’s older brother.Castiel didn’t pay attention to their conversation after that, too preoccupied with the fact that his tongue seemed to have swollen to three times its normal size and clogged his mouth, which would have prevented any words from coming out had his brain not decided to shut off all functions not related to the fact that Dean smelled like leather and cinnamon and was wearing sweatpants and had his thigh close enough to Castiel’s own that he could feel the heat radiating off of it.

 

Minutes, hours, or days later, Castiel couldn’t be sure, Dean bid them goodbye, Jess following soon after.Once they were gone, Castiel released a breath he felt like he’d been holding for a year and put his head down on the table.Balthazar took his rolled up newspaper and slapped him on the back of his head.

 

“For someone who makes their living with words and constructing sentences, you sure did a good job acting like a total prat,” he said, laughing.

 

Castiel looked up and rested his chin on the tabletop to glare at Balthazar across the table.“I was surprised, that’s all,” he said.

  
Balthazar just laughed harder.“Surprised!You were surprised!I buy that excuse for the first five minutes of breakfast, but not for the whole hour and a half he was sitting next to you.That’s plenty of time to adjust.”

 

Castiel banged his forehead on the table a few times.It seemed the only logical thing to do after making such a spectacular fool of himself.Balthazar kept laughing, and Castiel grew tired of it, so he stood up and took his tray to the tray return, vowing that next time he would be prepared to at least say good morning to Dean.

 

\----------------------

 

Only he wasn’t prepared to say good morning to Dean the next morning, or the next, or really to say anything any of the times Dean popped up during the day, and he certainly wasn’t prepared to deal with Dean’s offer to help him stretch after he found Castiel in the gym one night.It was frustrating, really.Castiel had the nation hanging on his every word and he couldn’t produce one thing to say to Dean.Dean didn’t seem to mind, kept his genial grin on at all times, always had a wink or two to throw Castiel’s way, an excuse to touch Castiel in some small way (“Eyelash, man, make a wish” or “Loose thread, I got you”).It got to the point that Castiel began to look forward to his meetings with Naomi because while their mutual loathing was palpable, and she never really seemed to want to take his advice, the Situation Room was one of the only places Castiel could count on Dean not showing up unexpectedly.

 

And what made it even more frustrating was the fact that Dean was ridiculously charming, funny, and smart, but Castiel was always so jarred by his sudden and unannounced appearances that he never had the chance to figure out what to say to him, which made him angry because Dean seemed like the kind of person he’d want to get to know whether or not they were romantically involved.After careful deliberation, Castiel decided that Dean’s penchant for surprise visits flustered him to the point where Castiel’s famously sharp brain just didn’t have the time to come up with a sufficient response.So Castiel adopted an aloofness that he thought would discourage the man enough for Castiel to dig for information on him, grill Jess for anything he could use to understand what kind of guy Dean was aside from his being charming, attractive, and good in bed.

  
This strategy worked for a day or so, and in that time Castiel found out that Dean had a car back home, a classic, and he was crazy about it.He learned that Dean wasn’t really an animal person.He learned that Dean loved his brother Sam more than anyone else in the world, and that he’d served overseas.After a day or so, however, it seemed like he was everywhere at once, like Castiel couldn’t turn a corner without that goddamn grin flashing at him, and then he was gone in an instant.A quick appearance, and then he was gone.It was infuriating, because despite the information he now knew about Dean, Castiel didn’t even have the time to strike up a conversation if he wanted to.And then there was the whole righteous anger he felt every time Dean showed up in his uniform because of what that uniform represented.

 

After a week of this, Castiel was a ball of pent-up pique and Balthazar banished him from his presence until he could “stop being so awful.”So Castiel stole a New York Times from the bureaucratic lobby and set up shop in the mess with a pen and the crossword.It was better mental stimulation than he’d been getting from Naomi’s strategy meetings, and doing it in pen gave him a cheap thrill.  

 

He absorbed himself in it, making good progress despite the caution that came with doing it in ink rather than graphite, but he soon found himself stumped.He refused to go back to his room to use the internet to find the answer, since that was defeating the purpose of the exercise, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out 61 across.All of the clues were vague on purpose, but this one just seemed overly esoteric.He stared at the crossword for an inordinate amount of time before just putting his forehead down on the newspaper, inhaling the scent of newsprint and growling in frustration.  

 

“What the hell does it mean.How am I supposed to know that?How is _anyone_ supposed to know that?What five letters spell apocalypse?”

 

“W, W, I, I, I?” came Dean’s voice from somewhere on his left side.Castiel’s head shot up and he stared with renewed interest at the crossword.He put the top of his pen in his mouth and chewed on it absently as he considered that - it fit.It worked with everything around it.He scratched the five individual capital letters into their respective squares and felt his face break into a grin.He’d finished the puzzle.He jerked around in his chair and smiled hugely at Dean.

 

“I was stuck forEVER,” he exclaimed breathlessly.

 

Dean chuckled and took the seat next to Castiel.“Glad I could be of service,” he said.He leaned back and loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button on his shirt so that his collar was open.He was wearing his blue uniform, his nametag missing again.

 

“So,” Dean began, cocking an eyebrow at Castiel.“Wanna tell me why you’ve been ignoring me?”

 

Castiel’s jaw jutted forward indignantly.“I haven’t been ignoring you.”  
  
Dean laughed, but it wasn’t unkind.“Cas, this is the most you’ve said to me since you kicked me out of your bed.I’ve been making a point to say hi as often as I can every day for two weeks, and all I get is this:”Dean did a poor imitation of Castiel, raising his eyebrows disdainfully, a sour twist to his mouth.Then his he resettled into the amiable expression Castiel had decided was Dean’s neutral resting face.He grinned again.“I’d say that’s ignoring someone.”

 

Castiel put the pen down on the table and crossed his arms over his chest.“I wasn’t _ignoring_ you, Dean, you just kept surprising me and I didn’t know what to say.Why did you keep popping up, anyway?”

 

“Because I like you, and you like me.”  
  
“I never said that.”

 

“You said, and I quote, you _could_ like me.It’s the same thing.”  
  
“Is it?”

 

“Sure.You _could_ like me, which implies a strong possibility of liking ensuing at some point in time, so I decided to hasten that inevitability because I like you.”

 

Castiel shook his head.“You’re something.”

  
Dean grinned even wider.“So they tell me.So where are we?”

 

“In the mess.”

  
“No, Cas, I don’t mean where are we geographically, I mean...you and me.Where do we stand?”

 

“Oh.Uh.Um.Well, I guess, uh,” Castiel stammered, searching desperately for words and coming up empty.

 

“Don’t strain yourself, man,” Dean said, leaning forward in his chair towards Castiel.“Let’s start with the basics.Did you have fun that night?”

 

“I told you I did.”

 

“Just checking.That’s good, because I definitely had fun.Buckets of it, in fact, and we’ve already established that we like each other, or the possibility for liking is definitely on the table, so where do we stand?”

 

Castiel sighed.He pursed his lips and stared at Dean.Under Castiel’s scrutiny, Dean’s grin slipped, and a slightly worried expression replaced the cheerful one he’d been wearing.  

 

“Cas,” Dean asked, concerned, “Did I completely misread this?Did I come on too strong?You look like someone just kicked your puppy right in front of you.Talk to me.”

 

Castiel pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled deeply.

 

“No, you’re fine,” he told Dean, “it’s me.One hundred percent me.I don’t know what I want.You’re attractive, and smart, and infinitely charming-” a grin from Dean for that - “I just don’t know how to navigate these kinds of waters.I’ve never really....talked to anyone I’ve slept with again?”

  
Dean blinked.“You’re a love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda guy?Geeze, Cas, way to cut a guy down.”

 

“No, no, that’s entirely the problem!”Castiel exclaimed, pulling at the hem of his sweater anxiously.“I _want_ to talk to you!I _want_ to get to know you!I _want_ to know all about your car and why you don’t ever wear your nametag and where you served your tours and what hair product you use and why your eyes get soft whenever Jess mentions Sam!I want to know all of these things that I’ve never wanted to know about anyone before, and I don’t know how to deal with that.I’ve never been in a relationship where that was all put on the table before, and I couldn’t figure out what to say to you.”

 

Dean grinned so wide that Castiel was worried his face would split in two, and he punched Castiel in the shoulder.

  
“So you _do_ like me!” he shouted triumphantly.

 

“That’s all you got out of that?”

 

“Yeah, whatever, you’ve never been in a relationship before?Dude, I’ve had like one and a half relationships.You’re good.No worries.All I needed to know was that you liked me, and not some half-assed ‘ _Oh, I could maybe sort of perhaps like you_ ’ bullshit.You _like me_ like me!”

 

Castiel sighed, exasperated.“Fine.I like you.You win.”

 

Dean punched him in the shoulder again.“Great.That’s fantastic.You like me.I like you.Neither of us really knows what we’re doing here!”

 

“And that’s a good thing?”

 

“Sure!We’re both on the same page, we’ve got ourselves a level playing field.I don’t know much about you, and you don’t know much about me, but we like each other, and I think I can work with that.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean laughed and shoved at Castiel’s shoulder. “It’s not an interrogation, Cas,” he said, “It’s called getting to know someone.”
> 
> “I call it Twenty Questions.”
> 
> “Call it what you want, but I know, like, five times more stuff about you than I did a week ago, when I knew your name and that you had a gluten intolerance.”
> 
> “You knew about my gluten intolerance?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the point where i started my last year of college and got way too busy for anything besides schoolwork (and watching 9 seasons of criminal minds....wait.......what). here is where i remind you that while i PINKY PROMISE this will get finished, i cannot promise when or how much longer it will take or when i can update. i am not the kind of person who makes an outline before she sits down to write, which yeah i know is a pERSONAL FLAW but that's just how i roll. i've gotten through 4 years of post-secondary education without writing a single outline and i ain't gonna start now. the best i can think of is that i have a full week off before commencement in 3 weeks so you MIGHT be able to expect an update around then, depending on how efficient i am in cranking out my two final papers. i love you. stick with me.

When Castiel took inventory of his past relationships, he came up with a string of names attached to half-remembered faces that hadn’t mattered enough to him to keep track of. Nobody he cared or knew how to talk to after they left his bed, or he left theirs. The closest he’d ever come to a relationship had been the four weeks he had spent with Inias after their initial tryst, but he’d only kept that up because he’d liked the thrill of sneaking around - Inias had been engaged to an adjunct German professor. Their time together had never moved beyond liking what the other person could do with their tongue, and while Castiel and Inias had respected one another intellectually, as one must at their scholastic level, Inias had never asked Castiel anything really personal, never cared to find out what made him tick. So this whole thing with Dean was throwing him for a loop, because for the first time in his thirty-three years of life, there was someone who was actively seeking him out, someone who seemed to delight in learning the minutiae of Castiel - how he liked his coffee (black, strong, and just this side of too hot), what his favorite sport was (sports?), what his favorite color was (yellow).  

 

They hadn’t really defined what they were to each other, since Castiel had laughed at Dean when he’d mentioned “dating” (“Dean, we live underground, where would we date?”), and Dean had decided that the word boyfriend was far too juvenile, and besides, it was too early to start thinking like that.

 

_“The key here, Cas,” he’d told Castiel sagely, leaning forwards in his chair and pointing a finger wisely at Castiel, “is to take it slow. We took this all sorts of out of order, skipped straight to the third date before we’d even had the awkward coffee-lunch thing you’re supposed to do first.”_

 

_“Are you complaining?”_

 

_“Hell no. But I definitely don’t want that to be a one-off, and I want to take things slow.  Get to know each other. Do it right? I don’t know, man, you just frown a lot and I keep wondering what I gotta do to put some laugh lines on your face.”_

 

It had been a week since their conversation over the New York Times crossword, and Castiel didn’t know what to call their new  _whatever_ , but he was finding it harder and harder to fight the annoying fluttering his heart did every time Dean showed up to eat breakfast with him in the morning. Which he did every morning. Most of the time, he was there before Castiel, chatting and laughing with Jess and Balthazar, if Balthazar happened to drag himself out of bed in time. Dean always had a horribly infectious smile for Castiel, and Castiel found himself returning it more and more often.  

 

This morning, when Castiel exited the serving line in the mess, he scanned the room to find Dean in his pajamas, alone at the table, head down on the tabletop, dead to the world. Castiel rolled his eyes and sighed, making his way over to the table. Once he was there, he slammed his tray down next to Dean’s head. Dean startled awake and slid out of his chair onto the floor. He glared up at Castiel, who ignored him and sat down delicately in his own chair, unfolding his napkin onto his lap and pouring his coffee.

 

“Good morning to you too, sweetheart,” Dean growled as he picked himself up.

 

Castiel smiled sweetly at him around a forkful of eggs.

 

“What was that for?” Dean asked.

 

Castiel shrugged and swallowed his mouthful before replying, “It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Good morning, Dean.”

 

Dean narrowed his eyes at Castiel over his own mug of coffee.

 

They ate in comfortable silence for a while, each glancing over at the other every other bite, making eye contact, blushing, and generally making Castiel feel like a middle schooler with a silly crush.

 

“What, no third degree this morning?” Castiel asked after he’d finished his breakfast. He pushed his plate away from himself and leaned back in his chair and fixing Dean with a haughty look complete with arched eyebrow.

 

Dean laughed and shoved at Castiel’s shoulder. “It’s not an interrogation, Cas,” he said, “It’s called getting to know someone.”

 

“I call it Twenty Questions.”

 

“Call it what you want, but I know, like, five times more stuff about you than I did a week ago, when I knew your name and that you had a gluten intolerance.”

  
“You knew about my  _gluten intolerance_?”

 

“Uh huh.”  


 

“Okay, how?”

 

“Google. Wikipedia.”

 

“Well, then.”

 

“Mmmmhm. Anyway, my little ‘Twenty Questions’ has been very enlightening. But let’s switch it up. I know all sorts of things about you, and you don’t know shit about me. So, go on. Ask away.”

 

“This is silly.”

 

“How else do you get to know someone you like, dummy? This is dating without the dates, man, you gotta get the awkward small talk out of the way.”

 

Castiel sighed. Dean was looking at him so earnestly and it was adorable and it made him want to either punch him or kiss him silly. Neither option seemed appropriate, so he decided to think about what he wanted to know about Dean.

 

Where to start, though? Most of the questions Dean had posed to Castiel had been relatively superficial, which Castiel supposed helped to put together a general picture of a person, but Castiel had never been big on superficiality. One of the reasons he’d never made a relationship work is the fact that he wasn’t good at the “awkward small talk,” as Dean had put it. He’d made his living asking deep, probing questions of governments and leaders, and he tended to bring that into his relationships, for better or worse. He was interested in the little things, sure, but beyond wanting to know what Dean thought of Beyoncé’s new album, Castiel wanted to know things like....god, he didn’t know, things like whether or not Dean believed in an afterlife. He wanted to ask questions like, what was Afghanistan like? Had Dean ever killed anyone, and if so, what was that like? He stared at Dean, who was chewing absently on a bite of toast and looking at his fingernails, and Castiel decided that if Dean really wanted to get to know him, then he’d have to get used to Castiel asking things that made him slightly uncomfortable because that was just the kind of guy Castiel was.

 

So Castiel took a breath and asked, “Tell me about your childhood.”

 

Dean started, looking at Castiel with raised eyebrows. When Castiel didn’t elaborate, Dean swallowed and said, “What about my childhood?”

 

“Anything. Where did you grow up? How did you grow up? What color was your mother’s hair? Did you play catch with your father? Anything. Just tell me about your childhood.”

 

“Well, you sure go big or go home, don’t you?”

 

“I don’t see the point in beating around the bush. I want to know you, how you  _became_ you, and the best place to start is at the beginning.”

 

Castiel watched as Dean fidgeted in his seat, staring at his plate, a muscle in his jaw ticking. Castiel supposed he should feel bad for prying, for bringing up a subject that Dean was clearly uncomfortable with, but he didn’t, really. Dean had been so slick and secure all week, and Castiel was glad to see that that had been nothing more than a front, that Dean wasn’t as put together as he liked people to think. Now he was even more curious about Dean - why did the mere mention of his childhood make him look like he wanted to crawl out of his skin?

 

Finally, Dean sighed and looked up at Castiel. He drummed his fingers on the table briefly.

 

“Alright,” he started, “I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know, but I don’t wanna do it here.”

  
He pushed himself up out of his chair and gathered up his tray, striding off to the tray return. Castiel scrambled to catch up with him.

 

“Where are we going?” Castiel asked.

 

“My room. More private.”

 

Castiel ignored the acrobatics his heart had apparently decided to perform in his chest. He knew logically that Dean wanted privacy to discuss things that probably made him feel vulnerable, but his mind kept trying to remind him what else they could need privacy for and he shook his head, telling his brain firmly to shut the fuck up. He trailed behind Dean, whose shoulders were a solid line of tension, and a niggling feeling of shame started to grow somewhere in his belly. Maybe this was the wrong thing to start out with after all. Dean led him through the mess and to a door that Castiel recognized as leading to where the Air Force lived and worked. Dean’s keycard granted them access and they walked down a corridor that was identical to every other one in the facility, and Castiel could hear the whirring of machinery farther along and around a corner. Eventually, they arrived at a steel door identical to Castiel’s own, and Dean swiped his card to let them in.

 

Castiel turned in a circle, taking it in. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t impeccable cleanliness. It wasn’t that the room didn’t look lived in or homey, not at all. In fact, personal touches were everywhere - the framed photographs on the dresser, the squashy rug in the middle of the floor, an old record player in the corner on top of a shelving unit that held what appeared to be a rather extensive collection of vinyl. It was homey, but Castiel was struck by the fact that every surface was dust-free and gleaming, there were no dust bunnies lurking in the spaces under furniture, and the bed boasted the sharpest hospital corners Castiel had ever seen. Dean threw himself facedown on top of the comforter after shucking off his shoes, burying his toes in the threadbare and faded quilt folded at the end of the bed. He turned his head to glance up at Castiel, his cheek squished by the pillow. 

  
“Well, siddown, would you? You’re making me nervous hovering like that,” he mumbled. Castiel bit his lip and sat down gingerly at the end of the bed, avoiding Dean’s feet. Dean ignored him and shoved them into Castiel’s lap. Castiel huffed.

 

“So, whaddya think about my place?” Dean asked, wagging his eyebrows suggestively.  
  
“Stop deflecting,” Castiel growled, shoving Dean’s feet out of his lap.

 

Dean sighed and rolled over onto his back, throwing his arm over his eyes. He took several deep breaths before removing his arm and staring up at the ceiling. He said nothing. Castiel worried his bottom lip with his teeth, playing with a piece of the quilt that was coming unstitched. He watched Dean, who said nothing. After several minutes of guilt bubbling up in his throat, Castiel couldn’t take it anymore and he reached out and grabbed one of Dean’s socked toes, shaking it back and forth.

 

“You really don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, you know,” he said quietly, staring at Dean’s foot. “I’m sorry. I am not very good at this sort of thing. I’ve been told that I don’t really have a filter? I’m working on it.”

 

There was a rustle as Dean sat up. He grabbed Castiel’s hand and tugged on it, making Castiel look up at his face. Dean was smiling, although his eyes looked tight and almost weary.  

 

“Nah, it’s okay,” he said. “I don’t wanna half-ass whatever this is, and I told you to ask me anything, right?”  

 

He laughed softly and let go of Castiel’s hand. He fell back onto the comforter, and Castiel shifted so that he was lying on his side, resting on his elbow, watching Dean.

 

Dean was quiet for a while longer, before he he sat up and crossed his legs under himself. He looked at Castiel and said, “I don’t really know where to start. It’s not like I had a bad childhood by any means, it just wasn’t normal. Mom died when I was really little, when my brother was a baby- “

  
“Your brother is Sam right?”

 

“Yep, Sammy. Biggest bleeding heart I know. He’s a total loser.”

 

Castiel watched as a gentle smile crept over Dean’s face, watched his eyes soften. Castiel felt warm all over, and he felt himself mirroring Dean’s smile.

 

Dean went on.

  
“Anyway, Mom died when we were really little. Arson. Burned down the whole house. Dad got us out, but the stairs collapsed and she got stuck. I, uh, I remember turning around and seeing her standing at the top of the stairs before Dad shoved us outside. Um, I remember watching the flame catch the bottom of her skirt, and, uh, and- “  
  
Castiel’s mouth was agape. Dean was staring at the comforter, rubbing the back of his neck, and Castiel couldn’t help himself when sat up, reached out, and embraced him, squeezing his arms around Dean’s shoulders.

 

“Dean, stop, you don’t have to tell me anything else,” he said into Dean’s neck, where he’d shoved his face.

  
Dean laughed wetly and pulled back, wiping at his eyes quickly. Castiel released him but kept one hand firmly clasped in one of Dean’s. He felt weirdly like he had to keep some sort of grip on the man or else one of them would fly away, and he couldn’t figure out who was grounding who.

 

“It’s fine, Cas,” Dean told him. “Sammy tells me all the time that I need to talk about stuff, so I should be thanking you for making me do it.”

  
Castiel shook his head and started to protest but Dean cut him off.  
  
“Seriously, I don’t mind. This will be good for me. Where was I? Oh, right. Mom’s on fire.”

 

“Dean!!” Castiel shoved him hard, and Dean laughed uncomfortably.

 

“Kidding, kidding, relax. So, uh, after  _that_ , it was just my dad taking care of us. And I don’t think he really ever got past it. I mean, neither have I, but he just couldn’t seem to cope with it. He drank, and couldn’t ever really hold down a job because of it, so we shuffled around the midwest a lot. I think the longest we ever stayed in one place was when my dad worked for this farmer in Nebraska and we stayed near Lincoln for a year or two when I was in high school.  

 

“It took me a long time to admit to myself that my dad was kind of a shitty parent. Him and Sammy were always at each other’s throats, and I felt like someone had to be on my dad’s side at least a little, so I would tell Sammy all the time that Dad did the best he could, which I guess is true, but Dad...he was either really great or really bad, and his bad was a lot more common than his good.

 

“When he managed to sober up long enough to get a job, it was great. He was the best dad in the world, taking us to the movies and to real restaurants for dinner and we’d even get allowance. We’d rent a shitty apartment, but it was better than the shittier motel rooms we rented when Dad was on a bender. But the sobriety never really lasted and he’d get fired and we’d pack up and leave town. Dad would leave me and Sammy in the motel with a couple hundred bucks and tell us not to spend it all in one place, and go on a bender. We’d be lucky if he showed up on his own in a week or two, but most of the time I’d get a call from the police and have to go pick up up from the drunk tank. I was always just happy that they found him alive and not facedown in some ditch somewhere.

 

“Dad was ex-Marine, and he raised us like we were soldiers. It was ‘yes, sir,‘ and ‘no, sir‘ wasn’t an option because he gave you an order and you followed it. The liquor made his tongue and fists looser, so you followed his orders. It pissed me off, but I spent most of my time trying to moderate his and Sam’s fights, so I never felt like I could say anything to him about it. Sammy said enough for the both of us. He was an observant little shit, and he figured out pretty quick that the way we were raised was not the norm, and he resented it like crazy. I remember this one fight where Sam stormed out and ran away for a few days, and I caught hell for it from the old man - he told me I needed to do a better job keeping my brother under control. Which was insane, since that was his job in the first place, and I was essentially a single parent at that point, and Sammy and I were both maintaining near-perfect GPAs because we both knew that the only way out of the life Dad had created for us was college and there was no way we could afford it without scholarships. I cooked Sammy dinner, I made sure he went to bed early enough to get a full eight hours, and I kicked his ass whenever he started to hang out with the wrong crowd.

 

“So, yeah, not the prettiest story. I worked my ass off and got into the Academy and almost didn’t go because I knew it would leave Sammy alone with Dad, but Sammy beat the shit out of me and told me if I didn’t go, he’d never talk to me again. He ended up at Stanford on a full ride, and his high school graduation was the best day of my life. He got the hell out of there, never looked back. I think he wanted to be as far away from anything that reminded him of our dad as he could. Dad kicked the bucket my junior year, got the whole military funeral and everything. Sammy didn’t come.”

 

~~~~~~

 

Dean and Castiel watched each other in silence for several minutes after Dean stopped talking. Dean watched Castiel’s face, and he thought he saw more emotions flitting across it than he’d seen in the entire time they’d known each other. He got the sense that this had put Castiel way out of his comfort zone, and the professor didn’t quite know how to deal with something that wasn’t emotionally sterile. The tension in the room grew, and Dean started to feel awkward, so he did what he did best and tried for levity. He shoved Castiel’s shoulder lightly and said, “Don’t look at me like that, you asked, doofus.” He was unprepared for Castiel to catch his hand and, in one quick motion, he once more found himself squashed against an itchy wool sweater.

 

“You are so impressive,” Castiel whispered harshly. Dean laughed, uncomfortable, and started to interrupt. Castiel just held him tighter and continued, “No, I’m serious, Dean, I can’t even begin to imagine the courage it took to escape that situation, let alone escape it and do what you’ve done with your life. I think your mother would be so proud of you.”

 

Dean cursed his traitorous eyes as he felt the sting of tears trying their damnedest to fall and let Castiel hold him for a while longer. He was embarrassed, to say the least, embarrassed that he was crying in the first place, and embarrassed that Castiel could definitely feel that wetness against his shoulder. He hated this part of himself, the one that was clinging to Castiel because deep inside he was probably starving for touch, and for a fleeting moment he hated Castiel for bringing it out in him when he normally did such a good job of pretending that it didn’t exist. At the same time, though, he found that more than anything, he was grateful to Castiel, for his weird prying curiosity that would get any other person punched out in a heartbeat. Sam was right, he should be talking to people about stuff, and his heart leapt at the thought that Castiel could be that people. He felt intrinsically that Castiel was someone who could look at him without passing judgement, see all the dirty parts of him and not find him wanting. And that was simultaneously immensely comforting and completely terrifying.   

 

Eventually, Dean pulled back and wiped his eyes, huffing out an embarrassed laugh. He glanced at Castiel and found his eyes filled with a tenderness that made Dean’s skin prickle in way that wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but he found that his gaze was overwhelming, and he ducked his head. The comfortable silence persisted, until Dean heard Castiel sigh and fall backwards and hugging his own body.

 

“Thank you for telling me, Dean,” he said in the whiskey-and-gravel voice that made Dean shiver in spite of himself.  

 

Dean shook his head and laid down next to Castiel. “No, man, thanks for listening.”

 

“I’ll always listen to you.”

 

Dean didn’t know what to say to that, so he said, “Well, now you know my boring old story, what’s yours?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Tit for tat, Cas, I wanna know about how you grew up.”

 

Castiel blew a raspberry and turned so that he was facing Dean. “There’s not much to tell,” he said.

 

“Bullshit,” Dean laughed. “I might live in a top secret underground military facility, but I don’t live under a rock. I’ve heard of your family, everyone has. So tell me, Cas, how does the other half live?”

 

Castiel growled and turned his back on Dean. Dean laughed again and pulled at his shoulder, but Castiel refused to budge. Dean stared at his back, filled with an overwhelming fondness. What a baby.

 

“Don’t get all pissy, I told you about my fucked up childhood. Yours can’t possibly be any worse.”

  
Castiel seemed to give up, bunching his shoulders up by his ears before rolling back over to face Dean again. He had a look of profound irritation determinedly plastered on his face, but his eyes held a little of their earlier softness, and Dean grinned broadly, because Cas was only human and Dean knew he’d fall for cute like the best of them.

 

With one last exasperated sigh, Castiel said, “Okay. Fine. You win. You’re lucky you’re adorable, Winchester.”

 

Dean whooped and punched the air triumphantly.  

 

“My life hasn’t been marked by tragedy as yours has,” Castiel said. “I was raised primarily in upstate New York, where my family owns considerable property. Most of my extended family is still there, the ones who aren’t in Washington, and I was surrounded by cousins whose relationship to me was usually only technical at best, connected as we were by name and circumstance. I was alone a lot, since my brother was away at school and my cousins thought I was strange. I guess I was, but I didn’t really think too much of it. When I was thirteen, I was sent to boarding school in Connecticut. I always thought it was a bit of a copout, honestly. My mother never showed any interest in me beyond making sure I was present for parties and other important functions, and my father was ambassador to Belgium until his death when I was twelve and hardly a real presence in my life before that, so I think it was a relief for her to send me off on that train and only needed to see me for four months out of the year when I was home for breaks.

 

“It was an abysmal failure, actually. People thought I was weird there, too, so I was alone more often than not, and, stereotypical Milton that I am, around thirteen I found a new best friends in a pipe and a needle.”

 

Dean blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Drugs?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“What kind?”

 

“Whatever I could get ahold of, really. Pot at first, but heroin was the love of my life from ages fourteen to sixteen.”

 

“Jesus.”

 

“He had nothing to do with it. I failed everything, naturally, and my mother yanked me out of there before I could embarrass myself further. I spent six months in rehab, the worst six months of my life, I might add. When I was finished there, my mother picked me up, told me I was an utter disappointment, and shipped me off to live with my aunt Anna in the City.”

 

Dean watched Castiel detailed his ultimate years of high school, and felt profoundly sad for the man. Where Dean’s life had been obviously afflicted by shitty circumstance and a parent whose childcare methods verged on traditional abuse, Castiel’s life had been one of isolation and apathy. He remembered how furious and acerbic Castiel had been in the situation room, how Dean had watched him storm out of the meeting and leave Naomi Engel herself utterly gobsmacked, how Dean could literally feel the fire roiling off of the man, and tried to reconcile that Castiel with the bored teenager he was currently learning about. He couldn’t.

 

“So what changed?” Dean interrupted.

  
Castiel furrowed his brow.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, you keep telling me about how few fucks you gave about anything besides getting high, but you are obviously ridiculously passionate about what you do. So what changed?”

 

Castiel smiled softly, the corners of his eyes wrinkling, and Dean felt his heart melt a little more. If Castiel didn’t cut it out, it would be entirely liquid before too long.

 

“The summer before senior year,” Castiel said, “Anna found my stash and ripped me a new one. She didn’t even yell, actually, but it was awful. She cried and asked me where she’d gone wrong, that she thought I’d left this all behind me in rehab, and I decided right then and there to get my shit together. I’d fucked up my GPA, but I worked my ass off and took community college classes on top of my regular course load, and I somehow pulled it off and got into SUNY Albany. I transferred to UChicago for sophomore year. I started out an English major because I didn’t want anything to do with what my family was known for, but I discovered pretty quickly that politics was in my blood, and I switched to polisci the second day of sophomore year.”

 

“No more drugs?”

 

“Nope. Making a beautiful woman who loves you cry kind of turns you off of it.”

 

Dean laughed. “I bet.”

 

Castiel smiled and Dean smiled back, feeling completely stupid but not finding it in himself to really care that much. This was uncharted territory for both of them, but he felt like the fact that his chest felt like a balloon too full of air was a good sign. They stayed there for a while longer, before Castiel said he had to go to a meeting. He kissed Dean on the cheek as he left, and when he went to work, Dean was unable to contribute anything of value for the rest of the day.

 

\----------------------

 

“I’m pretty sure what you’re doing is called dating, Dean.”

 

Dean groaned. Not this again.

 

“Give it a rest, Sammy. We’re not labeling it.”

 

“Alright, fine, don’t label it, but you’re dating. I can’t think of anything else to call it.”

 

Dean glared at Sam through the camera. His brother needed a haircut, and he looked entirely too smug for his own good.

 

“Dean, it’s a good thing!” Sam exclaimed.

 

Dean grumbled something in the affirmative, thoroughly mortified by Sam’s reaction. He’d made the mistake of telling Sam about the conversation he’d had with Castiel the other day, and when Sam had asked, he’d admitted to the fact that since then, they’ve hung out at the bar a couple times and made out once, and Sam hadn’t been able to contain a cackling fit when Dean had accidentally let slip that he’d taken to bringing Castiel a cup of coffee to his room every morning so he could have a chance to wake up on the way to breakfast. Castiel was busy with Naomi, and they hadn’t seen each other in two days, so Dean was bored and mopey and had decided the best course of action was to Skype his brother. He’d been very wrong.

 

“We’re not dating,” Dean growled stubbornly.

 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Whatever. But hey, seriously, I’m happy for you. Really. I can’t believe you told him about Mom.”

 

Dean relaxed. He felt his face slip into a dopey grin, but he didn’t feel like fighting it. “I’m happy too. He is seriously something else. I have no idea what he’s talking about half the time, and he’ll zone out randomly in the middle of a conversation and rush off and I’ll find him in the mess scribbling shit into a Moleskine. He has like fifty of them. They’re all for different shit, too, he’s got so many ideas and I feel smarter just sitting by him.”

 

He can feel himself rambling, so he cuts himself off. Sam looks close to tears, with a mushy smile on his face. “Wipe that look off your face, Samantha, I can hear your vagina growing from here.”

  
Sam’s face slipped into a pinched glare almost immediately, and he said, “Oh, that’s real classy, Dean, thanks for that. And here I was all excited to tell you that I’ll be coming by to visit.”

 

Dean felt his heart leap into his throat and he sat forward in his chair. “What?? Seriously?? You’re not fucking with me right now?”

 

“No, Dean, I’m not ‘fucking with you.’ Gabriel Milton got summoned, they want his advice on something to do with human rights violations. And I’m his number one here, so he’s bringing me along.”

 

“Holy shit, Sammy, that’s fantastic!” Dean shouted. His cheeks hurt from smiling. “Holy shit, it’s been forever. When are you getting here?”

 

“Four days. I’ll be there for about a week.”

 

They hung up soon after that, and Dean felt almost giddy. It had been months since he’d seen his big dumb little brother, and the thought of introducing him to Castiel made him feel stupid and floaty. They were both such nerds, they’d get along so well, and Dean couldn’t wait. He was just about to leave to go find Castiel to tell him the good news when there was a pounding at the door. He opened it to find Castiel, shirt half untucked and hair wilder than usual, face looking thoroughly distressed. 

 

“Uh, Cas?” Dean asked slowly, as if Castiel were a wild animal he was trying not to spook.

 

Castiel wrung his hands and stared at Dean with wide, desperate eyes. He chewed his bottom lip and Dean was just getting concerned when Castiel let out a strained whine and said, “I just want to apologize for everything in advance. I’d hoped we were a little more...established before I’d introduced you to Gabriel.”

 


End file.
